XIV. SIDE LIGHTS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS…

XIV. SIDE LIGHTS OF SOCIAL PROGRESS

1776-1825

THE “GAZETTE DU COMMERCE ET LITTERAIRE”--A RUNAWAY SLAVE--GUY CARLETON’S DEPARTURE--GENERAL HALDIMAND IN MONTREAL--MESPLET’S PAPER SUSPENDED--POET’S CORNER--THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY DISCUSSED--FIRST THEATRICAL COMPANY: THE “BUSY BODY”--LORD NELSON’S MONUMENT--A RUNAWAY, RED CURLY HAIRED AND BANDY LEGGED APPRENTICE--LAMBERT’S PICTURE OF THE PERIOD--MINE HOST OF THE “MONTREAL HOTEL”--THE “CANADIAN COURANT”--AMERICAN INFLUENCE--THE “HERALD”--WILLIAM GRAY AND ALEXANDER SKAKEL--BEGINNINGS OF COMMERCIAL LIFE--DOIGE’S DIRECTORY--MUNGO KAY--LITERARY CELEBRITIES--HERALD “EXTRAS”--WATERLOO--POLITICAL PSEUDONYMS--NEWSPAPER CIRCULATION--THE ABORTIVE “SUN”--A PICTURE OF THE CITY IN 1818--THE BLACK RAIN OF 1819--OFFICIAL, MILITARY AND ECCLESIASTICAL LIFE--ORIGIN OF ART, MUSIC, ETC.

Colonel Moses Hazen, who took command of Montreal, on April 1, 1776, for the congressional cause, was shrewd when in order to strengthen their position he wrote to General Schuyler for a printer, and Benjamin Franklin did a good thing for Montreal when he brought Fleury Mesplet, the French printer, and his plant with him, to the Château de Ramezay as an adjunct to the commission which was to seduce the French Canadians from their allegiance. Though this aim failed Mesplet remained behind on his own account after the commissioners had returned on their bootless quest and after publishing two works he started the “Gazette du Commerce et Littéraire Pour Le Ville et District de Montreal” which first saw light in French on Wednesday, June 3, 1778. His previous address to the public announced that the subscription was to be two and a half Spanish dollars per annum. Subscribers would pay one Spanish dollar for every advertisement inserted in the said paper during three weeks successively, non-subscribers one and one-half Spanish dollars, and the paper was to be a quarter sheet. The first number was rather literary than commercial. Advertisements came with the second number. Jean Bernard exhorts the public not to throw their wood-fuel ashes away. He would buy them at ten coppers a bushel. In number four occurs the advertisement: “Ran away on the 14th instant, a slave belonging to the widow Dufy Desaulnier, aged about thirty-five years, dressed in striped calico, of medium height and tolerable stoutness. Whoever will bring her back will receive a reward of $6, and will be repaid any costs that may be proved to have been incurred in finding her.”

The Gazette du Commerce did not realize its name for some time, there being in the small community a dearth of such, as Mesplet deplored in the first paragraph of No. 1. Very little political news ever filtered through the Gazette, but the arrival and departure of governors was safe; consequently he printed the address of Colonel Sevestre commanding the militia at Montreal to Sir Guy Carleton, who finished his term of office in July, 1778; and the reply commending the virtues and experience of his successor, General Haldimand.

The issue of August 12, 1778, records the latter’s visit thus:

“On the 8th instant at 6 P.M. General Haldimand made his entrance into the town amid discharges of artillery from the citadel and the vessels in the harbour. The English merchants were in the front, followed by the Canadian Militia and the regulars, the whole forming a line from the Quebec gate to the Company’s house, where His Excellency now resides. A band of 600 Indians, with Messrs. St. Luc de la Corne and Campbell, their officers and interpreters at the head, came out of the town and welcomed the new Governor with cries which proclaimed the joy they felt at his arrival. The citizens of the two nations proved their gratification by their enthusiasm and cheerful countenances.”

The next number does not appear, apparently being suppressed by the new Governor, but in the succeeding week it again was issued through the good graces of certain leading citizens who had procured him this liberty. He promises gratitude to the Governor and the succeeding numbers are strictly literary subjects, such as discussions on the opinions of Voltaire and the utility of the establishment of an Academy of Science.

In April, 1779, Mesplet invited criticism on a recent judicial decision, for which he was summoned to court and reprimanded against any repetition of the offence. But he was recalcitrant and in the fall he was arrested and taken to Quebec, the paper being suspended apparently till 1785.

By 1788 Mesplet’s paper was enlarged from quarter to foolscap four pages, printed in double columns in French and English. It seems to have become more of a newspaper and news a month old was served up to eager Montrealers. In 1789 there was still little commercial news, but there was a “Poet’s Corner” and several poems of Robert Burns, then rising to fame, are honoured there. In this year political discussion, a subject in the early days tabooed, appears in the Gazette. A correspondent discussing the burning question of a House of Assembly sums up thus:

“We are all Canadians and subjects of Great Britain. The distinction of old and new subjects ought to have been done away with long since. The prosperity of this country must depend on the unanimity that prevails amongst us. I am of the opinion that much good may be derived from a House of Assembly. Yet I fear the consequent evils, one of which is taxing a country unable to support the dignity of a House. The peasantry would not easily digest what that House of Assembly might impose and few, if any, of their class would be able to share in the legislation. It will, therefore, be the policy of Government to procrastinate this event until the province is really and fully Anglified, when, perhaps, a House of Assembly may be better known and received with the united voice of approbation.”

Up to this year the paper was published by F. Mesplet, 40 Notre Dame Street. In 1795 it passed into the hands of Thomas A. Turner and was issued from an office on the corner of Notre Dame Street and St. Jean Baptiste. By 1804 it had passed over to E. Edward, 135 St. Paul Street.

The date of November 10, 1804, records the movement for the first theatre in Montreal.

“Mr. Ormsby from the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh, respectfully informs the ladies and gentlemen of Montreal that he intends, with their approbation, establishing a company of comedians in Canada, to perform in Montreal and Quebec alternately. The theatre in this city is fitted up in that large and commodious house next door to the Post Office, where will be presented on Monday evening, 19th inst., a comedy in five acts called ‘The Busy Body,’ to which will be added the much admired farce called ‘The Sultan.’

“N.B. Particulars in advertisement for the evening: Boxes, 5s; gallery, 2s. 6d. Tickets to be had at Mr. Hamilton’s Tavern, the Montreal Hotel and at the theatre where places for the boxes may be taken.”

The news of the death and victory of Lord Nelson at Trafalgar on October 21, 1805, reached Montreal in the winter of 1805-6 and was the occasion of great activity among the inhabitants, so that immediately a subscription was taken up to raise their first monument. A committee was appointed and these in conjunction with Six Alexander Mackenzie, Thomas Forsyth and John Gillespie, then in London, took steps to raise it. The Governor-General, Sir J. Craig, having given the magistrates a piece of ground for general improvement, these granted a portion of it, at the upper end of the new market place, as a site for the intended column. The foundation stone was laid on August 17, 1809, and the monument was built of grey compact limestone of the district.

The four panel ornaments were of artificial stone invented by Coade & Seeley, of London. The battle of the Nile is represented on the north side. That on the east represents the interview between Lord Nelson and the Prince Regent of Denmark on the landing of Lord Nelson after the engagement off Copenhagen. The panel on the south side facing the river commemorates the battle of Trafalgar. The west side has the neatest panel, being ornamented with cannon, anchors and other appropriate naval trophies with a circular wreath surrounding the whole inscription:

In Memory of The Right Honorable Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson Duke of Bronté Who terminated his career of Naval glory in the memorable Battle of Trafalgar On the 21st of October, 1805, After inculcating by Signal This Sentiment Never to be forgotten by his Country, “ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY.” This monumental column was erected by the Inhabitants of Montreal In the year 1808.

The expense of this column when complete with the iron railing was £1,300. In the first cut stone at the east corner of the base, a plate of lead was deposited bearing the following inscription:

“In memory of the Right Honourable Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, Duke of Bronté, who terminated his career of naval glory on the 21st of October, 1805, this monumental pillar was erected by a subscription of the inhabitants of Montreal, whereof the Hon. Sir John Johnston, Knight and Baronet, the Hon. James Monk, Chief Justice of Montreal, John Richardson, John Ogilvie and Louis Chaboillez, Esquires, were a committee appointed for carrying it into execution, and the same was erected under the direction of William Gilmore, stone cutter and mason, from designs obtained from Mitchell, an architect in London.--17th August, 1809.”

Returning to the Gazette, a sidelight of 1806 thrown by an advertisement of William Gilmore, dated 7th June, reveals to us the apprenticeship system as then in vogue. It may seem to some an industrial tyranny.

“Ran away from the subscriber: Alexander Thompson, an indentured apprentice, about 22 years of age, 5 ft. 5 in. in height, red curly hair and bandy legs. All persons are hereby forbid hiring him under penalty of law. Any person who will bring him back shall receive three pence reward, no charges paid.”

Thus far the Gazette. The history of the Gazette of today, its successor, may be found in “Montreal, the Commercial Metropolis of Canada,” 1907.

Let us now present a side light of about this period.

At this time the Montreal Hotel was one of the chief hotels and it was kept by a Mr. Dillon who had some reputation as a water colourist of local scenes.

John Lambert, who visited the United States and Canada in 1806, 1807 and 1808, has the following picture: “The only open place or square in the town,” he says in his account of Montreal, “except the two markets, under the French Government was the place where the garrison troops were paraded. The French Catholic church occupies the whole of the east side of this square; and on the south side, adjoining some private houses, is a very good tavern, called the Montreal Hotel, kept by Mr. Dillon. During my stay in this city I lodged at his house and found it superior to any in Canada; everything in it is neat, cleanly and well conducted.” From his characterization of the landlord, one is somewhat disappointed that he does not mention his artistic gift. “The old gentleman,” he says, “came out in the retinue of Lord Dorchester; he is a very ingenious character.” But then, instead of commending his water colors, as one would naturally expect, Lambert concludes his notice of Dillon in these words: “and fond of expressing his attachment to his King and country by illuminations and firing his pedereroes off in the square.” Lambert also refers to the new parade ground. “At the back of the town, just behind the new courthouse, is the parade ground where the troops are exercised.” And, after some further words of description, he proceeds to suggest a truly attractive picture of suburban Montreal in the early nineteenth century. “Here,” he says, “the inhabitants walk of an evening and enjoy a beautiful view of the suburbs of St. Lawrence and St. Antoine, and the numerous gardens, orchards and plantations of the gentry, adorned with neat and handsome dwelling houses.” These, with green fields interspersed, lead up to the mountain from which the island and the city have taken the name of Montreal.

We will now turn to a new literary venture.

After the Gazette there came the “Canadian Courant” founded at Montreal in 1807 by Nahum Mower, a native of Worcester, Massachusetts. There came with him Stephen Mills, who was born in Rozalton, Vermont. The latter remained at Montreal till 1810, when he went to Kingston, where he founded the Kingston Gazette. He became a minister in 1835. These two New Englanders placed a distinctly American stamp on the new paper. The name “Canadian” was revolutionary to the old British colonists, but it pleased the French. The “Courant” lasted until between 1835 and 1840. That it should have continued its existence so long, looked on with suspicion by the chief English residents as democratic and revolutionary, would suggest that it was subsidized either by American merchants, for the trade relations now between the two countries were becoming intimate and profitable, or by the government of the United States, who, baulked in their revolutionary designs hitherto, were still desirous of seducing the neighbouring “Fourteenth” colony from its allegiance.

Nahum Mower left in 1829, and in his valedictory he claims to have made good his pledge in the first number that he “should make it his duty to become a good subject and endeavour others to continue so.” He worshiped, till 1813, when he sold his pew, in St. Gabriel’s Church, the only non-Anglican church then in existence, and the temporary home of all English-speaking non-conformists. Still he was accused of undue intimacy with the enemies of the British Connexion in Canada, especially during the troublous times of 1812 and the years of apprehension after.

The Canadian Courant had an early rival in the Montreal Herald, which published its first number on Saturday, October 19, 1811. Its first printer and founder was a young Scotchman, William Gray, of Huntly, Aberdeenshire, born on August 12, 1789. He arrived in Montreal in June, 1811. In 1812, May 25th, he was married to Agnes Smith, of Aberdeen, by the Reverend Mr. Somerville. William Gray, as surmised by Doctor Campbell in his “History of St. Gabriel’s Church,” seems to have been related in some degree of cousinship to Alexander Skakel, the most noted of the Montreal early British schoolmasters. He died at the early age of thirty-three, on February 28, 1822, having caught a cold on a journey in a Durham boat on his way from Toronto to attend to his business affairs, on hearing that in his absence his office had been mobbed by a crowd of French-Canadians, displeased with the tone of some of his articles. This young editor has left behind him a record of personal probity, good discernment and strong personal courage. His task in 1811 was no easy one--to establish an independent and unsubsidized paper in a small town.

The files of the early Herald give a contemporary picture of life of the community. Canada then had about four hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom most were in the Lower province; about four thousand five hundred regular British troops were mostly stationed there, also. Upper Canada consisted of only a few settlements, scattered here and there on the highways. Fur trading was the basic industry of the colony and its headquarters was at Montreal, the home and storage centre of the wealthy fur traders of the Beaver Hall Club. Agriculture was neglected till after the War of 1812, when it became realized that farming should be the staple industry of the colony. Unskilled labour was then performed by French Canadians, for there was yet no British immigrant labouring class. The skilled artisans came mostly from across the border, but the lesser storekeepers and merchants, chiefly Scotch, with an admixture of English and Yankees, were beginning to build up the permanent commerce of the city that was not always to be exclusively that of the fur trade. Among the business men then building up Montreal trade who were already well established before the war of 1812 were Alexander Henry, auctioneer; Benaiah Gibb, merchant; John Dillon, lumber merchant; James Brown, book-seller and owner of the Gazette; Peter McCutcheon, merchant; James and Andrew McGill, Forsyth, Richardson & Company, Maitland, Garden & Auldjo, Woolrich & Cooper, John Shuter, Samuel Gerrard, John Molson & Son, brewers and steamboat proprietors; Daniel Arnoldi, surgeon, and others.

The first home of the Herald, as far as ascertainable, was the 23 St. Paul Street given in Doige’s Directory of Montreal in 1819, the first systematic list of Montreal addresses. There is no proof of its having moved from elsewhere since 1811. On either side of it were two taverns, the Montreal Academy, a famous school kept by William Ryan, the residence of Joseph Papineau, eminent notary and public notary and father of the famous Louis Joseph, who was to become the “patriot” leader, and a small bookshop kept by a J. Russell. Near at hand, following Doige’s numbering, was the commissariat office and the residence of Colonel McKey, of the Indian Department, while a few doors away was the house of Peter McCutcheon, the famous merchant who afterward took the name of McGill. The “Canadian Courant” was established at 92 St. Paul Street, barely thirty doors from the Herald, and shared its premises with Daniel Campbell, a grocer. William Gray lived above his printing premises, as did his editor in 1819, Doctor Christie, and probably the latter’s predecessor, Mungo Kay, who was a Montreal merchant before he took to the journalist’s pen. At that date, and indeed for many long years, most of the storekeepers on St. Paul Street lived over their places of business. St. Paul Street was then the chief retail street; it ran the southern length of the town from the eastern fortifications of the Quebec suburbs to the western ones, ending at the present McGill Street. At either end there was a generous supply of taverns to meet the needs of those coming in from the country. In between them was a close succession of groceries, tailor shops, dry goods houses, hardware stores, druggists, bootmakers, glaziers, plumbers and the like. The Gazette at this period had its home on St. François Xavier Street.

The newspapers of the period received an addition by the advent of the first French-Canadian paper issued in Montreal, the “Spectateur.” They frequently had “brushes” with one another. In 1814, on July 2, a writer for the Herald, probably Mungo Kay, addressed an ode to a French-Canadian writer in the Spectator whom he calls “a certain gros bourgeois” and rallying him concerning a story, evidently known, of his efforts to cozen a certain negro:

See, wrapt in whirlwinds, from his stand On leathern wings he takes his flight, And on fell Mungo, with unequal hand Sped rancorous the rodures of the night; In deeds of darkness are their chief delight. And see, advancing ’thwart the storm Deception with his blotted form; Who tried the sable African to charm, But failed in his attempt to make him green, Albeit he the Justice did alarm, Who quaked with fear that he ’mong Truth’s friends should be seen.

Next week another satiric poem was addressed to certain “Spectators” who had two urns.

“One flows for B. and M----r warm with praise, And one for M----o bitter gall displays.”

For B. read Brown (John), the owner of the Gazette; for M----r, Mower (Nahum), the proprietor of the Courant; and M----o for Mungo Kay. Mungo Kay is credited by the Gazette in an obituary notice of him in 1813 on his death on September 18th, as having as editor for nearly seven years justified his choice of motto: “Aninos Novitate Tenebo”--“I will hold attention by means of novelty.” This was not meant to be satire but a tribute to his efforts to obtain the earliest intelligence. The Herald early began its “extra special additions.” In 1812, before it had been a year in existence, the Quebec Gazette reprinted such a special edition with the following acknowledgment:

“We beg the editors of the Herald to accept our thanks for their attention in transmitting the intelligence of the surrender of General Hull. This is not the first time that the public has been indebted to them for early intelligence.”

News in those days was hard to obtain, but even if a month late it was read with avidity, for the Napoleonic wars, involving the peace and security of the mother country and their own colony, which became involved in all British quarrels, found a passionate source of interest in the truly colonial loyalists of Montreal, who were surrounded by ill-wishers, secret or open, on all sides. It is amusing, however, to read the account of the Battle of Waterloo under the single line caption “Highly Interesting Intelligence,” the art of display headlines not then having become so pronounced.

The news of the victory of Waterloo reached Montreal in July, 1815. Montreal in its joy bethought itself of the widows and children of those who fell in the fateful battle and in consequence of a meeting called in the courthouse an amount of £2,717 16s 8d was soon raised, which was later added to largely.

Of local or colonial news, there being little or none, there was scant supply. But after 1815 the Montreal papers begin to have criticisms on matters nearer home. A class of writers now arose, especially in the Herald, the most daring unofficial paper of the period, who dealt ably and trenchantly on questions of policy and administration in Canada. These were written mostly under mythological pseudonyms to avoid personal responsibility and attack. This continued for many years. The anonymity of many has not yet been disclosed in literature, although there must have been many at Montreal to whom the real authorship was an open secret. “Nerva,” who wrote in the Herald much to inflame public opinion, has been disclosed later by the Montreal Gazette in an obituary notice, to have been the Hon. Samuel Gale, afterwards a famous justice of the superior court. Others, like “Aristides,” an early critic of the House of Assembly; “A true Jacobin,” a violent satirist of abuses in the police administration; “Observer,” complaining of extortion and sale of justice by police court officials; “Alfred,” with his suggestion that a strip of land ten miles wide should be laid and kept absolutely waste along the American frontiers as the only real safeguard against renewed invasion after the peace of 1814 (this same writer also protests earnestly against the insidious effects of Webster’s republican spelling book); “Veritas,” with his crushing exposure of the incapacity of Sir George Prevost--these contributed letters, together with outspoken editorial utterances written by Gray or Skakel, causing a fluttering in the dovecots of officialdom.

In 1815 bills of indictment were found against the editor and printer of the Herald for libel on the commander in chief, but as Sir George Prevost was recalled the case never came to trial.

The earliest extant copy known of the Herald is dated March 2, 1812. It was a paper 13 inches by 20½ inches, and contained four pages of four columns, which latter, in 1814, was changed to five. It started with a circulation of 170 subscribers, 150 being Montrealers. On its third anniversary the statement was given in the paper that the “weekly distribution rather exceeds one thousand impressions.” The price was $4.00 per annum. In August a larger sheet appeared, 15 inches wide by 21½ inches deep, and was divided into five columns, the editor calling his paper “a quarter larger than our former or any other paper published in North America,” and adding “The Herald has more circulation, probably by some hundred, than any other paper in Canada.” The enlargement of the sheet, which was followed by frequent supplementary sheets on a Wednesday, indicate the growth of advertising and commercial correspondence, and the immense increase of commerce after the peace. Indeed, at the time an attempt was made to establish a fourth Montreal paper, “The Sun.” Its promoters were Lane, a printer on St. Paul Street, and Bowman, a stationer on St. François Xavier Street. It only lasted a few issues.

Anti-American animadversions, however, still survived. The democratic leaders of the time were accused of being supplied with Yankee money and Yankee ideals. Samuel Sherwood, an American by birth and an early leader for popular government, was accused by the Herald of having given traitorous support and advice to the Americans during the War of 1812 and of keeping the “Sun” and the Canadian Courant supplied with “Jacobin” information from American sources.

A picture of the pigmy city of the period, written in 1870 by Mr. T.S. Brown in a small, forgotten pamphlet entitled “Montreal Fifty Years Ago”, may fitly help to illustrate this period:

“On the 28th of May, 1818, I first landed at Montreal. On my left was a dirty creek running down inside of a warehouse, being the outlet of a ditch, now tunnelled, that then, as a part of the old fortifications, ran around the city, westerly from the Champ de Mars through Craig street, with dilapidated banks, the receptacle of all sorts of filth. Above and below there was a revetment of a few hundred feet; except this, the beach and river bank were in their natural state. Just above the Grey Nunnery there was a cottage with a garden running down to the river, and adjoining this a ship yard where vessels continued to be built for some years later. Further on, the place of the Lachine Canal was a common with three windmills and the graves of three soldiers shot for desertion. The Island Wharf was then a little island, far off and alone.

“The city gates and fortifications, such as they were, had been removed some time previous. A remnant of walls remained at the corner of McGill and Commissioners streets, and between Bonsecours street and Dalhousie Square there was a mound of earth 55 feet high, called the ‘citadel.’ The old rampart on Great St. James street had been levelled, but there was no building on the west side between St. François Xavier and McGill streets. The northern portion had been a cemetery and an old powder magazine still stood in the middle of the street.... I came into the city through a narrow passage leading to the Custom House Square, then the ‘Old Market,’ a low, wooden shed-like building; and along the south side of the square was a row of old women seated at tables with eatables for sale. Capital street was a succession of drinking houses carrying on an active business from morning until night.... The largest was that of Thomas l’Italien (Thomas Delvecchio), facing the Market with a clock, on which small figures came out to strike the hours, to the continued wonderment of all, and next came Les trois Rois, of Joseph Donegani. This was the center of trade. A new market of similar construction had been erected on the present Jacques Cartier Square, running from Nelson’s monument (opposite to which was the guard house, jail, pillory and courthouse) to St. Paul street, but it was not liked. Everybody crowded to the little space of the Old Market and habitant vehicles so filled St. Paul street in each direction that constables were often sent to drive them down to the new market....

“Along the beach were moored several small ships and brigs, constituting the spring fleet.... The city was bounded by the river on the east, by Bonsecours street and the Citadel on the north, Craig street on the west, and McGill street on the south; within which limits all the ‘respectable’ people with few exceptions resided. The population in it was nearly as great as today--the upper part of nearly every store being occupied as a dwelling. All the houses in Notre Dame street were dwellings--in its whole length there were but two shops and three auction rooms. The cross streets’ buildings were nearly all dwellings and commercial business was almost confined to St. Paul street. Wholesale stores, except the establishment of Gillespie, Moffat & Company, were small indeed compared to the growth of after years.... There were numerous shops for country trade, all doors and no windows, always open winter and summer, with a goodly portion of the stock displayed outside, where salesmen without number were stationed to accost and bring in customers, who were often dragged forcibly....

“Nunneries occupied more space than now--the Hotel Dieu making an ugly break in St. Paul street. Of churches there were few.... The city was composed of one and two story houses, very few of three stories, built, with very few exceptions, of rubble stone, plastered over. All the stores and many of the houses had iron doors and shutters; many buildings had vaulted cellars and many had the garret floored with heavy logs, covered with several inches of earth, and flat paving stones, with a stone staircase outside, so that a roof might burn without doing other damage....

“Four streets leading to the country--St. Mary’s, St. Laurent, St. Joseph and St. Antoine--were bordered by houses, mostly of wood--one story, but intervening streets were short and vacant ground extensive. Log fences divided fields on the west of Craig street as far as Beaver Hall Hill, which was a grassy lawn with a long, one-story wooden building across the summit and a garden behind. All to the west of this was open fields where now stands the city of our richest people....

“Village primitiveness had not disappeared in Montreal fifty years ago. Old men sat out on the doorsteps to gossip with passing friends and often the family would be found there of an evening. In the suburbs neighbours would collect for a dance in the largest house and any respectable passer-by was welcomed if he chose to step in.... Business relations were more intimate between French and English fifty years ago than now, and I think there was more kindly feeling.... But social relations were much as they are now, the races keeping separate in their charities, their amusements and their gatherings. The English were more dominant--they were more generally the employers, the French the employed.”

November of 1819 was marked by an alarming natural phenomenon. On Sunday the 9th a dense black rain descended, depositing a substance which to the eye and taste resembled common soot. On the following Tuesday, after a dark morning of gloom, with the sun clouds at times greenish black, pitch black, dingy orange colour and blood red, so that some thought that the history of Pompeii or Herculaneum was to be repeated, and feared that Mount Royal, reported already to be the extinct crater of a volcano, was again in activity. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon rain fell again of the same sooty character mid fearful lightning and thunder. At 4 o’clock the summit of the steeple of Notre Dame Church was struck with lightning. The tocsin sounded a fire alarm; the steeple was on fire. The people gathered on Place d’Armes and before the conflagration was extinguished, the great cross fell with a crash, breaking into many pieces. The rain had deposited greater quantities of the sooty substance than on the Sunday preceding and “as it flowed through the streets it carried on its surface a dense foam resembling soapsuds. The evening again became darker and thus ended a day which may be classed among the dies atri of Montreal.”

At this time there was a certain official society life in the city which was fostered by the young military officers from the old country, to whom, apart from their extravagances, the colony is largely indebted for its heritage of culture, literature and art. The religious situation was filled by three Catholic churches, the Notre Dame parish church, built in 1672; the Bonsecours Chapel, rebuilt in 1771, and the “Recollets,” built in 1695, and loaned at different periods to the Anglicans and Presbyterians till they had their own temples. There were two Protestant churches, the Anglican Christ Church, which was the old disused Jesuit church till 1803, but which was now in its own edifice on Notre Dame Street in 1814, and the Presbyterian or Scotch chapel on St. Gabriel’s Street, built in 1792. The religious horizon was not clear. The Catholics and Presbyterians, or non-Conformist group, both had grudges against the Anglicans, arising from the question of the clergy reserves by which, according to the Constitutional Act of 1791, the Anglicans were the established church and reserves of land were provided for their growth and expansion to the exclusion of other Protestant denominations, who resented this privilege in a new country, especially by the “Church of Scotland,” who claimed equal rights to establishment, and the Catholics who had become civilly crippled and disestablished since the conquest, when they came under the same condition of the civil disabilities meted out to the Catholics in the old country.

The government officials and most of the British military officers therefore attended the Anglican services, while the fur lords and the traders, those of St. Gabriel’s church. The newspapers took sides. The Gazette followed the government party, while the Courant and the Herald voiced the views of the dissentients. In 1825 the Herald was bought by Archibald Ferguson, a rich merchant of Montreal, for the express purpose of upholding the rights of the Presbyterian church to a share in the clergy reserves, on the ground that the Scottish Church in Canada should be considered as much an established church as that of the Anglicans. Eventually it gradually came to be recognized in the courts that there were three “established” churches in Canada, the Anglicans, the Scottish and the Catholics.[1] But the increasing number of non-conformist bodies arising could not brook this, and so the old opposition against the “clergy reserves” was renewed and it was not till 1854 that this long burning question was settled by total diversion of the reserves from all religious purposes.

We may now return to the story of the Constitutional struggles again about to commence and in which Montreal was to take a leading part.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The historical development of the churches of Montreal is specially treated in the second part of this volume.

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XV. BUREAURACY vs. DEMOCRACY

THE PROPOSED UNION OF THE CANADAS

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT--MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS--FRENCH-CANADIANS AIM TO STRENGTHEN THEIR POLITICAL POWER--THE “COLONIAL” OFFICE AND THE BUREAUCRATIC CLASS VERSUS THE DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY--L. J. PAPINEAU AND JOHN RICHARDSON--PETITIONS FOR AND AGAINST UNION--THE MONTREAL BRITISH PETITION OF 1822--THE ANSWER OF L.J. PAPINEAU--THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL--THE BILL FOR UNION WITHDRAWN. NOTES: NAMES OF JUSTICES OF THE PEACE FROM 1796 TO 1833--MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY FOR MONTREAL DISTRICT, 1791-1829--PETITION OF MONTREAL BRITISH--1822.

The new Constitution of 1791 was honestly framed with the desire of giving a measure of representative government, but it was used, before long, by an oligarchy of the bureaucratic classes to whom the governors were victims. In Lower Canada the bureaucratic party opposed the French-Canadians and many of those of British origin. Furthermore there was added the development of a race enmity which ended so disastrously in the uprising of the “patriots” in 1837. The political situation was tense for half a century. The fight for mastery was between the legislative and executive council appointed by the Governor, and the legislative assemblies elected by the people.

Montreal felt the strain keenly. Viewed municipally its affairs were regulated from Quebec. The Parliament there exercising similar powers to those of our municipal council of today, but greater. The justices of the peace nominated by the executive council of the Province were but the executive arm carrying out the will of Quebec.

The constitutional struggles of this period so affected the life of Montreal, that to preserve a true picture we must still study their history. Passion always showed itself there more than elsewhere.

The war with the United States being over, the prevailing sentiment of all parties was one of loyalty to Great Britain. To none was this more attributable than to the French-Canadians, for they saw that an alliance with the States would swamp them politically and subvert their religion. They turned their attention to securing a strong hold on the management of government with the intention of strengthening the position granted them by the Quebec and Constitutional acts in the retainment of their laws, institutions and customs. They were learning self-government. They were beginning to demand a form of responsible government. Not, indeed, as it was afterwards understood, for it took the form only of desiring an elective council, one that, being outside crown nomination, would give them real power to control revenues. This the Governors, acting under instructions from the Colonial Office, were not prepared to grant. Canada was to be ruled as a colony from Downing Street. It was in statu pupillari.

The history of the next twenty-five years and more reveals the efforts of the two classes; on the one hand, of the Governors, the legislative council, the office holders under government, British and French-Canadians and the wealthier British merchants, whose interests lay in being in combination with the governing classes; and on the other, the majority of the people feeling their power, using their new freedom and striving democratically to make their numerical superiority give them the dominance they thought their right. Add to this the natural tendency of any democratic assembly to assert itself and to claim the fullest of powers for itself. Hence the House of Assembly, reflecting the people, is seen to be in constant opposition to the executive council, sometimes extravagantly asserting itself and running to extremes. Thus attacked, the bureaucratic party grew nearer together. Hence two spirits of suspicion and race enmity were being formed. All this was reflected in the life of the people and nowhere more strongly than in Montreal.

It would be tedious to follow the various sessions of Parliament, even to watch the Montreal county and town representatives such as the members for Montreal West, L.J. Papineau, the son of Joseph Papineau, now being in the ascendant and the incarnation of the most advanced Canadian pretensions, and Mr. Richardson, a Montreal merchant, a member of the council of legislature who represented the British minority, strongly siding with the government. The tension existing between the two parties was voiced by Mr. Richardson in 1821, when he exclaimed: “How can we (the legislative council) rescind our resolutions when there is a secret committee sitting in the House of Assembly which is, perhaps, deliberating on the appointment of the governor of their choice and on the removal of the person now in the castle, and putting their own in his place. The committee even sits without the knowledge of several members of the house of which there is no example in England except in the times of Charles I. The committee is, perhaps, a committee of public safety.” (“Christie,” Vol. II, page 72.)

The words produced a hurricane. The assembly passed resolutions calling for Mr. Richardson’s removal from all posts of honour. The adverse state of feeling may be best described by the passion aroused over a supposed act for the union of the two provinces in 1822, when the legislatures were to be united under the name of “the legislative council and assembly of the Canadas.” The bill was introduced in the English parliament by Sir Wilmot Horton, Under Secretary of State of the Colonies. It was opposed by Sir James McIntosh and others on the ground that Canada had not been made aware of the contemplated changes, which was very true. Consequently the bill was delayed.

In November Lower and Upper Canada were preparing their petitions for and against the proposed union, both French and English names being attached to the petition. Quebec was against it; Montreal district was divided. The French constitutional committee also refuted it. The names of those present embrace the Honourables: L.J. Papineau (chairman); Chs. de St. Ours, M.L. C.; L.R.C. de Léry, M.L.C.; P.D. Debartzch, M.L.C.; Chs. de Salaberry, C.K. and M.L.C.; and Messrs. Louis Guy, Frs. Derivières, D.B. Viger, M.P. P., J. Bouthillier, J. Bedard, J.R. Roland, H. Cuvillier, M.P.P., H. Henry, M.P.P., F.A. Quesnel, M.P.P., Louis Bourdage, M.P.P., F.A. Larocque, J. Quesnel, and R.J. Kimber. Eventually L.J. Papineau and Mr. John Neilson were chosen to proceed to England to represent the non-union case. Lower Canada as such prepared a petition against the union. It is claimed to have been signed by 60,000 by signature or by a mark. The Montreal bulky petition of twenty-nine pages in favour of the union from His Majesty’s “dutiful and loyal subjects of British birth and descent, inhabitants of the city and county of Montreal” bore 1,452 signatures and the date, December, 1822. The committee in charge of forwarding the petition was: John Richardson (chairman); C. W. Grant; J. Stuart; S. Gerrard; George Garden; Fred’k W. Ermatinger; Samuel Gale; G. Moffatt; John Molson; John Fleming. Mr. Stuart was chosen to present the case for union in England.

The petition represented that the division of the Province of Quebec into two provinces has been prolific of evil; that it has resulted in that the English population of Lower Canada has been rendered inefficient from the comparative smallness of their numbers since the whole power of the representative branch of the government had been given to the French-Canadians, so that of fifty members who represent Lower Canada only ten are English; that the assembly may indeed be said to be exclusively in possession of the uneducated peasantry of the country, under the management and control of a few of their countrymen whose personal importance, in opposition to the interests of the country at large, depend on the continuance of the present vicious system; that the speaker elected by the assembly was never of English origin “although if regard had been had to ability, knowledge and other qualifications, a preference must have been given to persons of that description;” that the French-Canadian population hitherto unused to political power had not used it with moderation, so that British emigration had been prevented; that the advancement of the colony was paralyzed; agriculture and “all commercial enterprise and improvement have been crippled and obstructed and the country remains with all the foreign characteristics which it possessed at the time of the conquest; that is, in all particulars French. The division into two provinces would result in Upper Canada availing itself of the advantages offered to trade with American seaports through the new canal system being elaborated by the state of New York. Secondly it has resulted in the continual disputes between Upper and Lower Canada respecting revenues from import duties, which can only be settled by the union of the provinces under one legislature. The petition refers to the desire of the French to establish a separate nation under the nature of the “Nation Canadienne.” The petitioners in conclusion beg leave to “specify succinctly the benefits to be expected from a Union of the Provinces. By this measure the political evils complained of in both Provinces would be removed. The French population in Lower Canada, now divided from their fellow subjects by their national peculiarities and prejudices and with an evident disposition under the present system to become a separate people, would be gradually assimilated to the British population of both Provinces; and with it moulded into one people of British character and with British feelings. All opposition of interest and cause of difference between the Provinces would be forever extinguished: an efficient Legislature, capable of conciliating the interests of the Colony with those of the Mother Colony, and providing for the security and advancing the agricultural and commercial prosperity of the country, would be established, by means of which the international improvement of both Provinces would not only be rapidly promoted with the consequent benefits thereto arising from Great Britain, but the strength and capacity to resist foreign oppression be greatly increased: the tie of connection between the Colony and the Parent State would be strengthened and confirmed and a lasting dependence of the Canadas on the latter be ensured, to the mutual advantage of both.”

Having given the British view of the situation it would only be just to give that of the other side. Analysis of their various petitions shows that they relied mainly on the wisdom of the Government in its past enactments which had been successful so that the country was progressing in agriculture and commerce in spite of great obstacles. The differences that had arisen between Upper and Lower Canada relative to revenues were not in consequence of the division of the two provinces but of temporary causes which could easily be removed by the acts of the executive legislature. The Union of the Provinces would only resuscitate dissension resulting from differences of language, religion, laws and other local interests. The new bill was directed against the dearest interests of nine-tenths of the population of this province. Allusion was made to the injustice of the new bill which would make English the language of debate, would exclude many from being elected to the Assembly and would give humiliating preference to the members of the Assembly from Upper Canada by affording the minority an equal representation with those of the Lower Province, whose population was five times as numerous.

It may be well here to allow the criticisms of Mr. L.J. Papineau to supply an element underlying the opposition of the opponents of the bill. In a letter to Mr. R.J. Wilmot, M.P., 23 Montague Square, London, Mr. Papineau alluding, doubtless, to the Montreal pro-union petition of which he had known, and speaking for his committee, wishes to dispel the odious aspersions on the great body of the people in this province, contained in several communications intended for England: “such as assertions that the opposition, manifested in this province on the part of the population so stigmatized, is the effect of prejudices alone; alluding to their supposed attachment for France and French principles; calling them foreigners (foreigners in their own land!). The bill in question, say these friends of the union, being so well calculated to Anglify the country which is to be ultimately peopled by the British race. * * * The preposterous calumny against the Canadians of French origin as to their supposed attachment for France requires no further answer than that which is derived from their uniform conduct during the wars and the loyalty evinced by them on every occasion. They are not foreigners in this, the land of their birth; they claim rights as British subjects in common with every other subject of His Majesty in these colonies. By what they call Anglifying the country is meant the depriving the great majority of the people of this province of all that is dear to men, their laws, usages, institutions and religion. An insignificant minority wish for a change and are desirous of ruling against every principle of justice by destroying what they call Canadian influence, that is to say, the influence of the majority of men entitled to the same rights as themselves, of the great mass of the natives. * * * Great Britain wants no other Anglifying in this country than that which is to be found in the loyalty and affection of the inhabitants, no other British race than that of natural born subjects, loyal and affectionate.”

The opinion of the legislative council of Lower Canada is finally to be recorded. In its petition it gives its fixed and determined opinion that the union of the two legislatures in one would only tend directly to enfeeble and embarrass His Majesty’s government and finally to create discontent in the minds of His Majesty’s faithful subjects in this colony. Upper Canada was quite satisfied with the existing conditions. The chief agitators, therefore, for the bill were to be found in Montreal and with them sided the Eastern Townships.

The bill for the union was withdrawn. When it was brought up later it was more wisely thought out. It did not tread on established prejudices and rights and it brought with it the panacea of true responsible government. But at the present date this was not fully seen. The great objective was to become independent of the colonial office by a representative and elective legislative council. It was hoped thus to control all expenditures. Hence the members of the lower assembly, not content with the exercise of mere municipal legislation, were ever asserting their rights in the latter regard and the Colonial Office as often, checking their aspirations.

NOTE I

NAMES OF JUSTICES OF PEACE OF MONTREAL FROM 1796-1833

James McGill John McKindlay St. George Dupré Charles Blake Louis Porlier Thomas McCord Pierre Vallèe John Lilly Robert Cruickshank Patrick Murray John McGill James Finlay Neveu Sylvestre Alexander Henry Gabriel Franchere James Walker James Alexander Grant Joseph Frobisher John Richardson Isaac Winslow Clarke Alexander Auldjo William Maitland James Hughes Simon McTavish James Dunlop Thomas Forsyth John Lees Louis Chaboillez Jean P. Leprohon Jean Bouthillier Francois Desrivièrés Jean Durocher Jean Marie Mondelet François Rolland Paul Lacroix Etienne St. Dizier James Caldwell Henry Deschambault Henry McKenzie James Milne William McGillivray Jean Jorand L.C. Deléry Chartier de Lothbinière Joseph Turgeon Archibald N. McLeod Louis Guy Thomas Porteious Joseph Senet Francois Ant. Larocque William Robertson Pierre de Boucherville Hughes Heney Charles Fremont Alexandre Malbut Henry Bing Louis Marchand Thomas A. Turner Angus Shaw Pierre de Rocheblave James Miller Fred W. Ermatinger Samuel Safe George Auldjo James Leslie John Gray George Moffatt Jonas Wurtele George Garden William Lunn Horatio Gates N.B. Doucet Henry Griffin Peter McGill Robert Frost D.C. Napier Thomas Barron William McKay William Prady John Fleming Charles de Montenac David Ross Touissant Pothier Denis Benjamin Viger Joseph Shuter John Fisher Jules Quesnel Adam McNider Pierre Lukin Benjamin Holmes Andre Jobin Austin Cavillier Joseph Roy Joseph Masson William Hall John McKenzie J.P. Saveuse de Beaujeu John Forsyth Jos. Ant. Gagnon Tancrede Bouthillier

NOTE II

MEMBERS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY FROM MONTREAL DISTRICT FROM 1792-1829

COUNTY OF MONTREAL MONTREAL SESSION MONTREAL WEST EAST

1 Joseph Papineau James McGill James Frobisher James Walker J.B. Durocher John Richardson

2 J.M. Ducharme Joseph Papineau A. Auldjo E. Guy D. Viger L.C. Foucher

3 Joseph Papineau James McGill P.L. Panet Thomas Walker Joseph Perinault F. Badgeley

4 Benjamin Frobisher James McGill John Richardson L. Roy Portelance Louis Chaboillez J.M. Mondelet

5 J.B. Durocher Wm. McGillvray J. Stuart L. Roy Portelance D.B. Viger J.M. Mondelet

6 J.B. Durocher E.B. Viger J. Stuart L. Roy Portelance Thomas McCord Jos. Papineau

7 J.B. Durocher E.N. St. Dizier Stephen Sewell L. Roy Portelance A.N. McLeod Joseph Papineau

8 James Stuart L.J. Papineau Sauveuse de Beaujeu Aug. Richer James Fraser George Platt

9 James Stuart L.J. Papineau L. Roi Portelance August Richer F. Souligny John Molson

10 Joseph Perrault L.J. Papineau Hughes Heney Joseph Valois George Garden Thomas Busby

11 Joseph Perrault L.J. Papineau Hughes Heney Joseph Valois George Garden Thomas Thain

12 Joseph Perrault L.J. Papineau Hughes Heney Joseph Valois P. de Rocheblave James Leslie

13 Joseph Perrault L.J. Papineau Hughes Heney Joseph Valois Robert Nelson James Leslie

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XVI. MURMURS OF REVOLUTION

RACE AND CLASS ANTAGONISM

“CANADA TRADE ACTS”--LORD DALHOUSIE BANQUETED AFTER BEING RECALLED--MOVEMENT TO JOIN MONTREAL AS A PORT TO UPPER CANADA--THE GOVERNOR ALLEGED TO BE A TOOL--EXECUTIVE COUNCIL--RIOTOUS ELECTION AT MONTREAL--DR. TRACY VERSUS STANLEY BAGG--THE MILITARY FIRE--THE “MINERVE” VERSUS THE GAZETTE AND HERALD--THE CHOLERA OF 1832--MURMURS OF THE COMING REVOLT--MONTREAL PETITION FOR AND AGAINST CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES--MR. NELSON BREAKS WITH PAPINEAU--THE NINETY-TWO RESOLUTIONS--MR. ROEBUCK, AGENT FOR THE REFORM PARTY, ADVOCATES SELF-GOVERNMENT--FRENCH-CANADIAN EXTREMISTS--THE ELECTIONS--PUBLIC MEETING OF “MEN OF BRITISH AND IRISH DESCENT”--TWO DIVERGENT MENTALITIES--THE CONSTITUTIONAL ASSOCIATIONS--PETITIONS TO LONDON--LORD GOSFORD APPOINTED ROYAL COMMISSIONER--HIS POLICY OF CONCILIATION REJECTED--MR. PAPINEAU INTRANSIGEANT--RAISING VOLUNTEER CORPS FORBIDDEN--THE DORIC CLUB--“RESPONSIBLE” GOVERNMENT DEMANDED.

The bill for the proposed union, shorn of the notion of union, came up in the Imperial parliament and passed as the “Canadian Trade Acts.” Its object was to secure Upper Canada from the possible injustice and caprice of the legislature of Lower Canada and the imposition and payment of duties. The act was challenged in the house of Quebec, but to no avail. In 1824 the president of the United States claimed the free navigation of the St. Lawrence to the ocean. This was objected to by the legislative council as pernicious to the interests of British trade and the merchants of Montreal in a petition of February 20, 1826, combatted the admission of the claim.

The constitutional record of the next few years of Montreal shows the growth of contention between the English and French population. In 1828 this came temporarily to a head in the petition and counter petition for the recall of Lord Dalhousie, the Governor General. Messrs. Denis B. Viger and Cuvillier were the bearers of a petition from Montreal. Lord Dalhousie was in consequence appointed commander in chief in India. At a banquet held in Montreal on June 7, 1828, with the Hon. John Richardson in the chair, a farewell was given to Lord Dalhousie prior to his leaving Canada, approving of his just government.

In 1831 a movement began to be advocated, especially in Upper Canada, that the island of Montreal should be separated from the Lower province and added to the Upper, so that this might have a seaport of its own, with power to regulate the duty on the imports without interference from Quebec. It was argued that in a few years the Upper province would be in advance of Lower Canada in agriculture and population. The movement found favour among the British party in Montreal but was strongly resented by those of French-Canadian birth. The house in session in 1832 rejected it as a premeditated and unprovoked spoilation in violation of the Capitulation treaty. This year, Montreal was incorporated as a city with a charter. (William V, Cap. 39.)

It was a charge against the legislative council that it consisted largely of officials holding their places at the pleasure of the crown and therefore irresponsible to the people and subversive of its interests. A view of the position of the legislative council may be seen from the returns that Gov. Gen. Sir James Kempt (1828-1830) was requested to furnish to the colonial office. These showed that the legislative council consisted of twenty-three members, twelve of whom held office under the crown, sixteen were Protestants and seven Roman Catholics. The executive council consisted of nine members, only one being unconnected with government, and all were Protestants with one exception.

In order to gain confidence and to remove the suspicion that the legislative council was under the influence of local government and guided in its proceedings by the will of the Governor, which he alleged to be an absolute misrepresentation, Sir James advised that one or two of the most important of the assemblymen should be advanced to the legislature.

Lord Aylmer, who succeeded Sir James Kempt, in a private letter to Mr. Hay said, on the other hand, that the impression on the public mind was that a sinister influence was continually operating on the governor, who was being swayed to a very great extent by the executive council; although this was not the case, he thought the public should be satisfied on that head. But he agreed that Mr. Papineau and Mr. Neilson should be advanced. He disapproved of Mr. Papineau’s public conduct and language, though he esteemed his private character. “There is,” he wrote to Mr. Hay, “one consideration which, more than any other, renders it desirable, in my view of the matter, to make choice of these gentlemen. A very general opinion prevails in this country that the person at the head of the government is always more or less influenced by the executive council which, whether justly or otherwise, I will not take it upon myself to say, is not held in general estimation, and it appears to me that the introduction of two gentlemen enjoying like Mr. Papineau and Neilson the confidence of the public, into that body and, as it were, behind the scenes, would go far towards removing the opinion alluded to, and which I can positively state, as far as regards myself, is wholly without foundation.”[1]

In 1832 a vacancy occurred in the west ward of Montreal by the resignation of Mr. Fisher. As it reflects the turbulent conflicts that had been going on so long in the House at Quebec and indicates the high pitch of excitement to which minds were then brought, a lengthy notice is not out of place. It also foreshadowed the violent scenes of 1837. The candidates were Mr. Stanley Bagg, a representative of one of the oldest British firms in Montreal who shared in the views of British party, and Doctor Tracy, an Irishman attached to the “Vindicator” which had espoused the extreme views of the assembly; indeed, he had been recently imprisoned for his censures on the legislative council. The contest was very close and lasted for some days. On May 21st, when Doctor Tracy was a few votes ahead, there was every appearance of a riot around the polls. The Fifteenth Regiment was called out, the riot act was read but the tumult continued. The account given by Kingsford’s History of Canada, Volume IX, pp. 481-99, tells graphically what follows. As the poll was being closed the partisans of Tracy, headed by himself, rushed against those of the opposite side. The troops were now ordered to advance and reached the old Montreal Bank, the site of the present postoffice. The troops were received with volley after volley of stone. Colonel McIntosh called to the mob to cease this aggressiveness, or he would give orders to fire. The troops continued to advance up St. James Street, giving opportunity for the mob to retire. The stones continued to be thrown. A second halt was made. The crowd, now composed almost entirely of Tracy’s supporters, had greatly increased. The attack upon the military continued. Again Colonel McIntosh threatened to give the order to fire. According to the evidence of the lieutenant present, Mr. W. Dawson, from whose testimony this narrative is taken, several men in the ranks were severely hurt by these missiles. The colonel was struck, as was the subaltern. Colonel McIntosh, still hesitating to act, again warned his assailants. It was all in vain. To judge by the testimony given at the inquest the mob evidently believed that the military would not dare to act. They were cruelly mistaken. The first platoon of sixteen men were ordered to fire; three of the crowd fell dead, two were wounded. In a few seconds the street was cleared. * * * It was the first event of this character in Canada and caused a great sensation. From the violence shown it was dreaded that the riot might continue. The consequence was that a detachment with some field pieces was stationed at the Place d’Armes. During the night pickets paraded the streets. The Minerve in its continuation of abuse described the event as the massacre of peaceable, unarmed citizens, and that in order to make the military forget their crime they had been abundantly supplied with rum. * * * No arrests were made. * * * The coroner’s inquest was held. Mr. Papineau attended every day.[2] * * * Nine witnesses testified that the soldiers fired upon the people as they were dispersing after the close of the poll. Three witnesses described the act as the consequence of the riot. No verdict was given.[3] * * * The coroner, nevertheless, issued warrants for the arrest of McIntosh and Temple. They were immediately bailed to the amount of £1,000. The proceedings of the coroner were set aside as illegal, but the matter did not stop here. These officers were again arrested and subjected to much annoyance. Finally, in September, the grand jury returned the indictment with “no bill.” The same result was obtained in the case of the magistrates, Messrs. Robertson and Lukin, indicted on a similar criminal charge as having given orders to the troops.

The action of the military was approved by the grand jury, and by the commander in chief, the latter being further commended by Lord Fitzroy Somerset through Lord Aylmer, the governor general. An address of sympathetic citizens was presented to the two officers. La Minerve on the 24th of May, 1832, however, was implacable. “It is difficult,” it says, “not to be convinced that there was a desire to make a general massacre. It is clearly proved that the faction hostile to the Canadians has been preparing for this atrocity for a long time. The party that we have opposed for thirty years desired today to shoot us down. * * * They also wished to shoot Mr. Tracy. * * * Mr. Bagg’s partisans laughingly approached the corpses and saw with fierce joy the Canadian blood flowing down the street. They have been seen shaking hands congratulatingly and regretting that the number of the dead was not greater. * * * Let us never forget the massacre of our brethren. * * * Let the names of the wrongdoers who have planned, advised and executed this crime be inscribed in our annals handed down to infamy and execration.”[4] (History of Canada, page 109.)

The funeral of the three Canadians was attended by about five thousand persons and following the bodies were Mr. Papineau, the speaker of the assembly, the leader of the French-Canadian party and his chief supporters.

From this date the tone of the newspapers Le Spectateur at Quebec and La Minerve at Montreal is noticeably inflammatory in the demand for the redress of their grievances. On the other hand, the English papers representing the British party, especially the Gazette and Herald of Montreal, dealt no uncertain blows in return and Mr. Papineau fared ill. He was looked upon as a demagogue inciting dissension and making political capital from the late misfortune of May 21st.

The memory of the riot was not allowed to die down in the neighbourhood of Montreal and elsewhere. At Longueuil on June 11th a resolution, provoked by the affair of May 21st, set forth that “the British government deceived by men who are our envenomed enemies, are following in a line of conduct leading to our destruction and slavery; that the fate of the Acadians is being prepared for us, that the neglect of the frequent demands of our rights on the part of England had tended to break the contract between her and us.” In these and other meetings there was generally a protest against granting to capitalists independently of the colonial legislature a large portion of the uncultivated lands of the crown. This was aimed at members of the British party.

Another protest was at immigration from Great Britain. The parishes were being inoculated with discontent. This last was emphasized at this period especially, as in 1832 Canada was suffering from cholera; from June 9th to September 30th, the number described as having died being 3,292. It was at this date that Gross Ile, thirty miles below Quebec, was established by the provincial executive as a quarantine station on the warning from the home government, having itself suffered its ravages in the winter of 1831-2. The disease was thought to have been brought early in June by the “Carrick” with emigrants from Dublin containing 133 passengers, of whom fifty-nine had died on the voyage. The malady is supposed to have quickly spread from the emigrants to others through Quebec and Montreal. Apparently the disease did not spread in Upper Canada to any extent. The boards of health lately established did all they could, by the establishment of hospitals, to stay the disease. The Montreal board of health reported on the 26th day of June that there had been from the 10th to the 25th of June inclusive 3,384 cases and 947 deaths. The Fifteenth Regiment suffered severely. But at the end of June the disease was abating. A correspondent writing from Montreal on the 25th of June said that the printers, like others, had deserted their work a fortnight before, but at the date he wrote activity was resumed, the stores were again opened and the markets better supplied. On the 6th of July Lord Aylmer wrote: “The panic in the public mind is rapidly subsiding and the people are returning to their ordinary occupations, which at one period of the prevalence of the disease were almost entirely abandoned.” The arrival of emigrants during 1831 and 1832 had been numerous. The official returns for 1831 and 1832 give the numbers as being 48,973 and 49,281.

At Montreal the seriousness of the political and social situation and the menaces that were looming to the peace and to the security of life and property, was not blinked. Moderate men of both parties already heard the rumblings of the revolt of 1837. A meeting was held at the British American Hotel on the 4th of November with 500 persons present. Mr. Horatio Gates, a prominent merchant, was in the chair and many other important men discussed the situation earnestly. A committee was formed to draft the petition, to the throne, based on the resolutions of the meeting. The names reveal the inclusion of weighty French-Canadians: “J.C. Grant, Hypolite Guy, Alex Buchanan, Jules Quesnel, George Auldjo, Turton Penn, Pierre Bibaud, Dr. W. Caldwell, Dr. B. Rollin, Augustin Perreault, T.B. Anderson, Felix Souligny, Joseph Masson, and J.T. Barrett.”

Briefly the resolutions expressed confidence in the present system of government, desiring no change in the system of the legislative council which was an essential product of the legislature; it was stated that the political excitement of disaffected persons was creating a want of confidence in the security of property and had embarrassed all commercial relations, and it was felt now a boundened duty “to declare their unalterable attachment to the government, etc.”

This action at Montreal was offset by a petition from Montreal considered in the session, praying for constitutional changes; it demanded an elective government in every department; it protested against any system of emigration which, while being beneficial to the Upper Province was not so to the Lower. It assailed the officials for the proceedings consequent upon the riot of May 21st at Montreal. Mr. Leslie, a British merchant of Montreal and extreme supporter of Mr. Papineau, moved the inquiry into the affairs of the 21st. On this occasion Mr. Andrew Stewart threw it into the face of Mr. Papineau that he was creating national distinctions, that he had given rise to the consternation which he felt, when he should have shown moderation. During this session Mr. Neilson also took a decided stand against Mr. Papineau, the first step towards a break in their political relationship. The discussion on the events of May 21, 1832, was deferred to next session. The house was prorogued on April 3, 1833.

This year, 1833, was remarkable as that of coming into effect of the municipal act of Montreal and Quebec, a forward movement treated of elsewhere. During the session of 1834 the famous Ninety-two Resolutions introduced by Mr. Bibaud kept up the agitation for change and redress. In 1834 Mr. Roebuck, who had left Canada in 1825 and had, as member for Bath, moved in April, 1834, in the house of parliament in London for the appointment of a committee to enquire into the means of remedying the evils in the government of Upper and Lower Canada, took a step which largely fanned the fire of discontent in Montreal. Addressing the united and permanent committee of the reform party of Montreal in favour of self-government as then meditated through a representative elective legislative council, he advised them to resist the parliament of Great Britain. He advocated peaceable methods before taking to arms. But they had to fight sooner than lose all hope of self-government.

This infused, if possible, more vigour to the pens of the writers in La Minerve and the Vindicator, of which Doctor O’Callaghan was editor.[5] Violent attacks on the government were renewed. French-Canadians were urged to organize for the revolutionary movement. The moderate French-Canadians were fearful of the outcome. The British party, in self-defence, prepared a petition, and a deputation to Quebec to Lord Aylmer with an address conceived in opposition to the spirit of the Ninety-two Resolutions. On August 24th Mr. Hume presented Mr. Bibaud’s Ninety-two Resolutions to the imperial parliament signed by 18,083 persons. On the 24th of September the supporters of the Ninety-two Resolutions met and supported resolutions on the same lines. Among those present was Girod as a delegate from Verchères; he was a strong adherent of Papineau and later, in 1838, was one of the leaders in the insurrection of St. Eustace.

In October and November the elections took place. In the west ward of Montreal Papineau and Dr. Robert Nelson were declared elected by the returning officer Lusignan before the legal time for the close of the polls had arrived. A protest was made by Mr. Walker and Mr. Donnellan, the opposing candidates, without avail. A few days later Mr. Papineau issued a fiery philippic--a common custom of his--against the Governor General with the effect when Lord Aylmer visited Montreal later, La Minerve and the Vindicator appeared with their columns in mourning. In Quebec the new city council had the insolence to pass a vote not to pay the “visite de cérémonie” to Lord Aylmer on New Year’s Day.

During November Constitutional Associations were formed in Montreal and Quebec by the British party who now feared a separation with the mother country. At Montreal an address was prepared as a result of a public meeting on November 22d to men of “British and Irish descent.” It was signed by John Molson, Jr., and was directed to their fellow countrymen of the Province of British America for their oppressed brethren of Montreal, and solicited their “attention to a brief and temperate exposition of our principles and grievances.” It is a lengthy statement containing about three thousand words, though not so long as the grievances of the Ninety-two Resolutions, which occupied twenty-five pages of the journals of the house in 1834. As we have not reproduced the latter neither do we those of the British party, though a perusal of each would give a vivid picture of the seriousness of the situation and the tension on both sides. It was the conflict of two mentalities become, for the time, hopelessly irreconcilable and highly inflamed by the vision of their real or imaginary grievances and injustices. It was commercial progress and British expansion versus a conservative agriculturalism and a “nation Canadienne” for Lower Canada.

In February of 1835 the new parliament met. Its proceedings are more marked with the signs of the anarchy so soon to become a thing of fact. In answer to the Governor’s address there was demanded in the name “of the great body of the people without distinction, the introduction of the elective principles for the legislative council.” A petition was also prepared for the king, in which it was claimed that the people at large “fully participated in the opinions of the majority of the house.” The real proportion of the constituencies for and against the Ninety-two Resolutions was less than three to one,[6] the country parishes largely contributing to this result. The house was prorogued on March 18th, having sat only twenty-five days.

Scenting trouble, the “constitutional associations” of Quebec and Montreal prepared to meet emergencies. Branches were multiplied in other places when possible. Circulars to public bodies and prominent men over Canada were diffused. The interest and aid of the United States were canvassed. The statement of grievances from Montreal signed by John Molson was a dangerous precedent. Leading men in London were approached. To meet the activity of Mr. Roebuck, who had recently been appointed an agent for the reform party, Mr. Neilson was sent to present a petition to the king from Quebec, and Mr. William Walker that of Montreal. They left via New York in April. Mr. Roebuck presented the counter petition of the House of Assembly to the House of Commons on March 9, 1835. That from Montreal was presented by Mr. Stuart on March 16th.

The Canadian difficulties were now so notorious that the king determined to send an extraordinary commissioner. Lord Gosford was finally appointed and with him were associated Sir Charles Grey and Sir George Gibbs. These arrived at Quebec on August 23d. On September 17th Lord Aylmer with his family left for England. His term of office had been stormy but while vituperation fell upon him on one hand, he was otherwise sustained by the strong minority. Lord Gosford came with a policy of conciliation openly manifested and openly rejected. He met his parliament within two months after his arrival. His opening speech as governor general, the longest on record on such an occasion, was delivered on October 27, 1835. He unfolded his theory of conciliation and promises of redresses of grievances. The house, however, was tuned up only for extremes and showed no readiness for compromise. This lesson has been since well learned, experience of the failure of any other course having been abundant. The concluding words of Lord Gosford’s speech are noteworthy and impressive. “To the Canadians, both of French and British origin, and every class and description, I would say, consider the blessings you might enjoy and the favoured situation in which but for your own dissensions you would find yourselves to be placed. The offsprings of the two foremost nations of mankind, you hold a vast and beautiful country, a fertile soil, a healthy climate and the noblest river in the world makes your most remote city a port for the ships of the sea. Your revenue is triple the amount of your expenditure for the ordinary purposes of government. You have no direct taxes, no public debt, no poor who require any aid more than the natural impulses of charity. If you extend your views beyond the land in which you dwell you find that you are joint inheritors of the splendid patrimony of the British empire which constitutes you in the best sense of the term citizens of the world and gives you a home on every continent and in every ocean on the globe. There are two paths open to you. By the one you will advance to the enjoyment of all the advantages which lie in prospect before you. By the other I will say no more than you will stop short of these, and will engage yourselves and those who have no other object than your prosperity in darker and more difficult courses.”

The existence of the Commission was studiously ignored by the Assembly. But on the 6th of November an amendment to the draft in answer to the address was moved, approving of the appointment of the commission as a proof of the wisdom and magnanimity with “which the grievances of the province had been listened to, and now confidently hope that the results of its labours will be satisfactory to all classes.”[7] Mr. Papineau vehemently attacked the motion. The commissioners were without legal or constitutional power. Their report, favourable or not, was immaterial. The motion was voted down by forty-five to eight. The governor general’s position as such was, however, recognized.

The “Constitutional” associations of Montreal and Quebec, composed of those who held substantially by the existing constitution with certain reforms dictated by expediency, were meanwhile viewing with dissatisfaction the intransigeant attitude of the majority of the house. At Montreal it was proposed by the British population to raise a volunteer corps of 800 strong. A memorial was sent at the close of December to the Governor General asking for official sanction for the enrollment and offering its services to the Government. It was not granted on the grounds that no rights were in danger and that the enrollment would endanger public tranquillity. The organization was proceeded with. Lord Gosford issued a proclamation declaring it illegal and unconstitutional. The corps was dissolved and in notifying Lord Gosford he was informed that “As committee men of the British Rifle Corps we must express to Your Excellency our regrets that the day has arrived when, in a colony conquered by British arms, a body of loyal subjects has been treated as traitors by a British Governor General for no other crime than that of rousing themselves to protect their persons and property and to assist in maintaining the rights and privileges granted them by the constitution.”

In addition a meeting was called and a memorial sent to Lord Gosford justifying their conduct on the grounds that the constitution was endangered. They would always be ready to defend British institutions.[8] It is said that the Doric Club, a more or less secret society of Britishers, now dated its formation.

The policy of conciliation was meeting a rebuff on both sides. The Montreal “Vindicator” later even spoke of “the treacherous administration of Lord Gosford.”

On the 21st of March, 1836, the parliament was prorogued. There was the same stubborn determination of the majority of the assembly to assert itself to overrule the existing constitution and thus control the situation on the lines of the Ninety-Two Resolutions so as to make government impossible. It met again on September 22d. No bills were passed; two were introduced, one for the appointment of an agent in London, another to amend the Imperial act of 1791 (an unconstitutional proceeding beyond the powers of the assembly), with a view of establishing an elective legislative assembly directly responsible to the representatives of the people. This appeal for “responsible” government as it was then vaguely conceived, was always steadfastly pursued as the basic reform needed to solve all the other grievances under which the province was suffering. The aim was self-government and the abolition of the bureaucracy and privileged class incidental on an appointed legislative council chosen by the Crown. After a short session of thirteen days in all, the house was prorogued on October 4th. The parliament of Lower Canada met again on August 18, 1837, but as its members would not transact any business at all, it was prorogued on August 20th, never to meet again.

The annual meeting of the Montreal Constitutional Association met in December, 1835. Ward committees were appointed. Among the principles to be advocated was the abolition of the feudal tenure, the continued improvement of the harbour of Montreal and of the canal communications. In February, 1836, Sir John Colborne was relieved of his position as Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. Before embarking for England he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the forces in both provinces. On July 1st he issued a general order from Montreal on the assumption of command. In June a movement of a “Constitutional” committee was afoot in Montreal for the recall of Lord Gosford. It dropped, however, on opposition from the Quebec Constitutional party.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “Canadian Archives,” Q. 197, p. 78; see report by Dr. Brymner for 1899.

[2] The Quebec Gazette justified Mr. Papineau’s being present as he was acting in his profession as an advocate.

[3] These were French Canadians.

[4] Bibaud, “History of Canada,” Vol. III, p. 109.

[5] Dr. O’Callaghan was subsequently returned to the house of assembly in the new parliament of 1835 as the representative of Yamaska. There he was unknown but Mr. Papineau’s influence carried the seat. In the subsequent parliament he became a staunch lieutenant of his leader.

[6] Mr. Jacques Viger, the first mayor of Montreal and also a conscientious historian and archaeologist, made a concise statement of the political strength of the opposing parties in the counties, towns and boroughs as recorded in the votes at the last election for and against the spirit of the Ninety-Two Resolutions on which the election turned.

For Against Not Voting

361,801½ 115,838 35,619½

Quebec 7,120½ (i.e. ¼) 20,148½ (i.e. ¾)

Montreal 13,714 (i.e. ½) 6,254 (i.e. ¼)

One-fourth did not vote, owing to the vacancy in the seat of one of the representatives. See “Christie,” Vol. V, 238-242.

[7] The commissioners finished their six reports before the end of 1836. They were eventually doubtless useful to Lord Dunham in the preparation of his report. The commissioners considered an elective legislative council undesirable but they formulated a system of representative government on lines which we now understand. While granting the government of internal affairs it strove to preserve the unity of empire.

[8] In the Imperial parliament in 1837 Mr. Robinson quoted La Minerve of Montreal, which stated that immediate separation from England was the only means of preserving French Canadian nationality.

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XVII. MONTREAL IN THE THROES OF CIVIL WAR

1837-1838

THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL TO REMAIN CROWN-APPOINTED--THE SIGNAL FOR REVOLT--FIRST INSURRECTIONARY MEETING AT ST. OURS--DR. WOLFRED NELSON--CONSTITUTIONAL MEETINGS--THE PARISHES--THE SEDITIONARY MANIFESTO OF “LES FILS DE LIBERTE” AT MONTREAL--REVOLUTIONARY BANNERS--IRISH REJECT REVOLUTIONARY PARTY--MGR. LARTIGUE’s MANDEMENT AGAINST CIVIL WAR--THE FRACAS BETWEEN THE DORIC CLUB AND THE FILS DE LIBERTE--RIOT ACT READ--THE “VINDICATOR” GUTTED--MILITARY PROCEEDINGS--WARRANTS FOR ARREST--PAPINEAU FLIES--RELEASE OF PRISONERS AT LONGUEUIL--COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES--ST. DENIS--LIEUTENANT WEIR’S DEATH--GEN. T.S. BROWN--ST. CHARLES--ST. EUSTACHE--CAPTURE OF WOLFRED NELSON--SECOND MANDEMENT OF BISHOP LARTIGUE--DAY OF THANKSGIVING--CONSTITUTION SUSPENDED--THE INDEPENDENCE OF CANADA PROCLAIMED BY “PRESIDENT NELSON”--THE REGIMENTS LEAVE THE CITY--LORD DURHAM ARRIVES--AMNESTY AND SENTENCES--DURHAM RESIGNS--THE SECOND INSURRECTION--MARTIAL LAW IN MONTREAL--SIR JOHN COLBORNE QUASHES REBELLION--STERN REPRISALS--ARRESTS--TRUE BILLS--POLITICAL EXECUTIONS--“CONCORDIA SALUS.”

In the March and April of 1837, the parliament in London seriously considered the Canadian emergency. On March 6th, Lord John Russell introduced ten resolutions, which passed. The fourth stated that it was inadvisable to make the legislative council of Canada an elective body, but that measures should be taken to secure for it a greater degree of public confidence, and the fifth, that while expedient to improve the composition of the executive council, it was inadvisable to subject it to the responsibility demanded by the house of assembly.

The news was received with welcome by the British constitutional party who had clung tenaciously to the crown-appointed executive as their only hope of adequate representation in the government of the province. To the national party it came as a signal for revolt. On May 7th, the first insurrectionary meeting was held at St. Ours, Dr. Wolfred Nelson having a large share in its convention. Mr. L.J. Papineau was acclaimed as an O’Connell, a man called by God as the regenerator of his nation. Other meetings now began in the parishes of the Montreal district and Mr. Papineau left his home in Montreal for his mission of agitation.

On July 6th the constitutional party held a meeting in the Place d’Armes. On the motion of the Hon. Peter McGill, the Hon. George Moffatt took the chair. Messrs. Quesnel and de Bleury were elected vice presidents. Among the resolutions proposed were those of the necessity of the connections with the mother country for the prosperity and advancement of the colony and the necessity of resisting any attempts at dismemberment. A similar meeting was held at Quebec on July 31st, on which day the news of the death of William IV reached Canada. On August 1st Victoria was proclaimed Queen of British North America.

The country districts outside of Montreal were fomenting revolt. At St. Eustache and St. Benoit “anti-coercion” meetings were held, as well as at Napierville, seven miles west of the Richelieu. On August 18th the last parliament of Lower Canada was called but was prorogued on the members refusing to legislate because of want of confidence in the Imperial government in London through its failure to grant their demands. Forty years later the House of Assembly was reestablished as that of the Province of Quebec. The proceedings of the last assembly were regarded by the constitutional association as a virtual annihilation of the constitution and an address was issued on September 4th to this effect and signed by the Hon. Peter McGill and Mr. Badgley as secretary. This address given in full in the Montreal Gazette on the 9th of September advocates the union of the legislatures of the two provinces as affording a solution by giving a fair share of proportional representation to the British population.

On the 5th of September the new society “Les Fils de Liberté” held a meeting in Montreal. The members were to meet as a military corps with arms for the purpose of being drilled as if under sanction of the government. Its motto was to be “En Avant!” On October 1st it published a manifesto of which certain paragraphs clearly disclose its seditionary purpose. “The authority of a parent state over a colony can only exist during the pleasure of the colonists; for the country, being established and settled by them, belongs to them by right and may be separated from all foreign connection, whenever the inconveniences, resulting from an executive power residing abroad and ceasing to harmonize with the local legislature, makes such a step necessary to the inhabitants for the pursuit of happiness.” Again: “The separation as commenced between parties which will never be cemented but which will go on increasing until one of those sudden, those unforeseen events that attend the march of time, affords us a fit opportunity for assuming our rank among the independent sovereignties of America. Two splendid opportunities have been lost. Let us not be unprepared for the third.”

Writing on October 6th Sir John Colborne, an old Peninsular veteran who had fought at Waterloo and was now the commander in chief of the forces, says: “The game which Mr. Papineau is playing cannot be mistaken and we must be prepared to expect that if four hundred or five hundred persons be allowed to parade the streets of Montreal at night, singing revolutionary songs, the excited parties will come in collision.” On the 7th of October the offer of a British rifle corps in Montreal was again politely declined. Yet those of British, Irish and United States origin were facing the inevitable conflict foreseen by them.

It soon came. On October 23d a meeting took place at St. Charles on the Richelieu. Dr. Wolfred Nelson took the chair. Mr. Papineau, Thomas Storrow Brown, L.M. Viger, Lacoste, Coté, Girod, and others, being present among the speakers. It was a fine day and the militia were there. Flags in abundance streamed out with inscriptions such as “Long live Papineau and the elective system!” “Down with Debartzch!”[1] “Independence, Lord of the Eagle Heart and Lion Eye!” “The Canadians know how to die but not to surrender!” “Papineau and the Majority of the House of Assembly!” “An elective council, a sine qua non of liberty: I will conquer or die for her!” A death’s head and cross-bones with the words “Legislative Council.” (See Montreal Gazette, Tuesday, 31st October, 1837.)

It is said that on this occasion Papineau, fearing the excitement prevalent, counseled moderation, but Wolfred Nelson rejoined: “Well, I differ from Mr. Papineau. I think the time has come to melt our spoons and make balls of them.” A wooden pillar with a cap of liberty was erected with an inscription in French that was dedicated to Papineau by his grateful brother patriots of 1837. Lengthy resolutions were passed of no uncertain seditionary tendency. The British soldiers were encouraged to desert and assistance was promised. On the same day a great meeting of constitutionalists was held in Montreal with Peter McGill in the chair; 7,000 persons were said to be present. The note struck was the need of organization in anticipation of crimes now threatening civil life. On this occasion the Irish, abhorring attempts to connect them with the rebellious party, declared their readiness to repel by force, if necessary, the enemies of the constitution.

Next day, October 24th, Monseigneur Lartigue, who had become the first Catholic bishop of Montreal on September 8, 1835, issued a mandement taking the view that revolt to constituted authorities was against the doctrine of the Catholic church. It condemned the proceedings of the revolutionary leaders at public meetings. He bade the faithful not to be seduced, and called upon the country to reflect on the horrors of civil war. On November 6th what Sir John Colborne had feared, took place. The Doric Club, a kind of secret society recently founded and joined by a number of the British and Irish young men, met the “Fils de Liberté.” It had been reported that the “Fils de Liberté” were to proceed in procession and to hold a demonstration in the Place d’Armes and there plant a tree of liberty. A proclamation was issued calling upon all to refrain from the procession. About 2 o’clock the “Fils de Liberté” began to muster at Bonacina’s Tavern at the corner of St. James and McGill streets, opposite the American church which then stood there. A party of “loyalists” watching the proceedings provoked the “Fils de Liberté” to chase them up St. James street, breaking the windows of the loyalists’ houses, among them being that of Doctor Robertson. The members of the Doric Club now came to the rescue, changing the face of affairs and driving the opponents “pell mell” down St. Lawrence Main Street in confusion until they were dispersed. In the early course of the fracas “Gen.” Thomas Storrow Brown, a leader, or at least a sympathizer of the “Fils de Liberté,” received an injury which resulted in the loss of an eye.

The riot act was read in the afternoon and the First Royals and the artillery, with some field guns, marched through the streets headed by two French-Canadian magistrates, Mr. Desrivières and Mr. John Donegani. The loyalists marched to Bonsecours Street and were, with difficulty, restrained from attacking Mr. Papineau’s house. The office of the Vindicator on St. Lambert’s Hill, near Fortification Lane, was gutted, type, presses, paper, etc., being thrown into the street.

This paper in the reform and malcontent interest had made itself particularly obnoxious to the constitutionalists. Such incitements as the following had been appearing in its columns: “Henceforth there must be no peace in the province, no quarter for the plunderers. Agitate! Agitate!! Agitate!!! Destroy the revenues; denounce the oppressors. Everything is lawful when the fundamental liberties are endangered. The guards die, they never surrender.” During that night the main guard was strengthened; pickets were placed on St. Lawrence Main, Place d’Armes and in the Quebec suburbs. The Montreal Royal Artillery patroled the streets and Griffintown was paraded by a body of independent mechanics. On November 9th Sir John made Montreal his headquarters and his firm conduct gave confidence in contrast with the dilatory methods of Lord Gosford. Soon Montreal began to receive fugitives from the parishes, many of these being magistrates and militia officers and others under government who had been forced by threats to resign.

On the 12th of November a proclamation was issued against meetings for military drills. All public assemblies and processions were forbidden. Volunteer corps of riflemen, artillery and cavalry were now raised under the authority of the Government. A new commission of the peace was issued for the Montreal district. Sixty-one of the former had been struck off.

On November 16th[2] warrants were issued for the arrest of twenty-six insurgents, among them being Mr. Papineau, Doctor O’Callaghan, Mr. Thomas Storrow Brown and the accredited leaders of the “Fils de Liberté.” The principal leaders escaped, Mr. Papineau flying to Doctor Nelson at St. Denis.

On the same day Lieutenant Ermatinger with a party of eighteen of the Montreal cavalry was sent to St. John’s to arrest three who had been instrumental in forcing the resignation of government officials. They were returning with the prisoners when they were surprised at Longueuil by a rescue party of two or three hundred and after some heavy firing the assailants departed with the rescued prisoners. This victory organized by Mr. Bonaventure Viger and others, gave courage to the insurrectionists and was the commencement of hostilities. To counteract the dangers arising from the éclat of the release, an address to the parishes was issued and signed by thirteen French-Canadian magistrates of Montreal, D.B. Viger, Pierre de Rocheblave, Louis Guy, Edouard M. Leprohon, Etienne Guy, P.R. Leclerc, W.B. Donegani, Charles J. Rodier, Alexis Laframbroise, Jules Quesnel, Felix Souligny, P.J. LaCroix, and N.G. Barron, counseling submission to law and order. “Those who urge you to these excesses,” it said, “are not your true friends. They have already abandoned you and will abandon you in a moment of danger, whilst we, who recall you to the paths of peace, believe ourselves to be the most devoted servants of the country.”

The insurrection feared was likely to be confined to the counties bordering on the Richelieu and to the county of Two Mountains north of Montreal. Consequently detachments of military were sent from Montreal to the disaffected districts, such as St. Denis and St. Charles. At St. Denis on November 23d Colonel Gore’s detachment besieged Madame St. Germain’s storehouse, whither Dr. Wolfred Nelson had retreated with a number of men and from which Papineau had already fled early in the day. Gore left behind him thirteen of the defenders killed, and of his own, six dead, five wounded, and a spiked howitzer. On the morning of November 23d the tragedy of the death of Lieutenant Weir of the Thirty-second regiment took place. He had been sent with dispatches and was captured by Doctor Nelson’s patrol. He was given to a Captain Jalibert to be taken in a wagon to St. Charles. On the way thither Weir attempted to escape. It was alleged that he was brutally cut down. The autopsy disclosed many sword wounds and pistol shots. His body was found in the Richelieu weighted down with stones, lying on its face in two feet of water. On December 8th it was buried with much solemnity. In 1839 Jalibert was tried for murder but was acquitted.

At St. Charles the insurgents were under the leadership of Thomas Storrow Brown who, from being in the iron retail trade in Montreal, now became “General” in the absence of the accredited leaders. He had lost an eye in the riot of November 6th and was looked upon as a patriot. At St. Charles the curé, M. Blanchet, lent his support to the insurgents, one of the few examples of the clergy meddling in this trying time. The other was M. Chartier of St. Eustache, who was afterward interdicted by Mgr. Bourget for his conduct. The engagement at St. Charles took place on November 24th. Of Colonel Wetherall’s detachment, the official report gives one sergeant, two rank and file killed, eighteen wounded, ten seriously. It is difficult to chronicle the returns of the insurgents. One statement is that 152 of the insurgents were killed and 300 wounded. The tradition in the village today is that forty-two were left on the field and a great many wounded. It is certain that thirty prisoners were received in Montreal.

In the north of Montreal the insurrection broke down after the news of St. Charles, so that even at St. Eustache the opposition offered by Amery Girod and Doctor Chenier collapsed on December 14th, though it is said not without the loss of seventy killed. The loss of military is reported as one private killed, one corporal and seven privates wounded. Sir John Colborne had been in charge of the column. This returned to Montreal on the 16th with 106 prisoners from the insurrectionary district, including St. Eustache. The Abbé Chartier escaped to the States; Amery Girod fled but on the fourth day of his flight he blew his brains out to avoid falling into the hands of the police. Doctor Chenier fell pierced with a ball as he was escaping from the window of the parish church.

On the 29th of November a proclamation had been issued offering £500 for the apprehension, among others, of Dr. Wolfred Nelson, Thomas Storrow Brown, Doctor O’Callaghan, Doctor Coté and Drolet of St. Marie. On December 1st a proclamation offered £1,000 for the arrest of Mr. Papineau. Mr. Papineau and his faithful companion, Doctor O’Callaghan, had fled together from St. Denis to St. Hyacinthe and after the news of the disaster at St. Charles they made for Swanston in Vermont. Afterwards he spent some years in Paris. Doctor O’Callaghan never returned to Montreal, although permitted with Wolfred Nelson and Thomas Storrow Brown by the nolle sequi of 1843, secured through Mr. Hippolyte Lafontaine, attorney general under the Union. He became distinguished at New York as a peaceful translator and editor of the documentary history of New York. Dr. Wolfred Nelson escaped in the direction of the United States, but was captured on December 12th, worn out with hunger and cold, and was taken back prisoner to Montreal. His courage and uprightness, however, entitled him to the respectful treatment he was there accorded. On December 5th martial law was proclaimed and the banks conveyed their “specie” to the citadel. On January 8, 1838, Mgr. Lartigue issued a second mandement in which he blamed those who turned a deaf ear to the clergy, who had warned them against the danger of listening to the “coryphèes d’une faction” with whom they had become infatuated.

On February 20th a day of thansgiving was held for the termination of rebellion and the renewal of peace. This day also marked the handing over of the administration of Lord Gosford to Sir John Colborne, who entered on his authority on the 27th. In the meantime, in London, it had been determined to send Lord Durham as special commissioner. The act suspending the constitution of Canada reached Canada in February and was proclaimed on the 20th of March. A special council[3] of the legislature was appointed and gazetted on April 5th with a summons to meet on the 18th. This provisional council was afterwards dissolved by Lord Durham on his arrival.

About the beginning of March an abortive attempt to arouse insurgents was made under Robert Nelson, brother of Wolfred, and Doctor Coté, on the frontier, who were both arrested and handed to the civil power. Six hundred “patriots” surrendered on this occasion to General Wool of the United States army. At this time a fatuous declaration of the independence of Canada appeared in the Montreal papers signed by Robert Nelson, president, by order of the Provincial Government: the proclamation accompanying it was also signed by Nelson as Commander-in-Chief.

About the end of April the Glengarry and Lancaster Regiments marched through Montreal on their way home, their presence being no longer required, owing to the proclamation of the termination of martial law on April 27th.

On May 29th Lord Durham arrived with his large staff. One of his early acts was to issue on the 28th of June an amnesty to all who had engaged in the late insurrection on giving security for their good behaviour applicable to those in custody or who had fled. There was an exception made for eight who were to be sent without trial to the convict station of Bermuda. These were Dr. Wolfred Nelson, R.S.M. Bouchette, Bonaventure Viger, Simeon Marchesseault, Godda, Dr. L.H. Masson, Gauvin, and Desirivières. Death penalties were to be awarded to L.J. Papineau, Doctor O’Sullivan, Thomas S. Brown, John Brown (father and son), George Etienne Cartier and others if they should return of their own accord. This was afterward annulled. On the 7th of July, Durham left Quebec for Montreal and the west. In Montreal he was well received. His stay in the country as a commissioner was, however, very short. For on September 25th, as the Imperial government disallowed these ordinances, Durham notified his resignation to the British government, remaining at his post till November 1st, when he sailed for Quebec.[4] Sir John Colborne assumed the administration on this day. On the 16th of January, 1839, he became governor general.

The second insurrection opened on November 4th, when Robert Nelson entered Napierville to declare himself President of the Republic of Canada. During the summer Nelson, Coté, Mailhot and others of the refugees on the Vermont and New York frontiers had been organizing the insurrection among the habitants of the counties of the Richelieu extending west to Beauharnois. The district of the Two Mountains did not rise this time.

Sir John Colborne was at Sorel when he heard of the Richelieu gatherings. Posting to Montreal he proclaimed martial law and by the 7th and 8th of November the military was dispatched from the city under Sir James Macdonell. The campaign was over by November 10th, when the resistance at Beauharnois was suppressed. Yet but for the decisive action of Colborne it might have been serious. Sir John wrote that no fewer than thirteen thousand habitants had assembled between the 3d and 8th of November expecting to be furnished arms by their Vermont and New York sympathizers.

If the second insurrection was of less importance its reprisals were more serious. The first rebellion had passed without the judicial shedding of any blood and with a generous amnesty. On the second revolt it was thought necessary by Sir John Colborne to put the fear of the law into all further harbourers of treason. A special court martial was constituted in Montreal, and many suspects were imprisoned. In Montreal 679 had been arrested in December, and in January following 129 more. Sir Hippolyte Lafontaine was one, but he was released on December 13th. Mr. D.B. Viger refused to give a security for his good conduct and he was kept prisoner until he was specially and unconditionally released by Governor General Lord Sydenham. Those arrested elsewhere were few. Of those convicted and sentenced to death, twenty-seven were pardoned on security of good behaviour. Four were bound not to come within a stated distance of the frontier. Of the prisoners tried in Montreal, sixty-eight were embarked at Quebec on the transport “Buffalo” for New South Wales, accompanied by eighty-three from Upper Canada. Later, within five years, they returned, pardoned, to the Province.

In September, 1839, the trial of Jalibert and others for the murder of Lieutenant Weir took place, and the prisoners were released. The grand jury found true bills against Louis Joseph Papineau, Thomas Storrow Brown, Robert Nelson and E.B. O’Callaghan. The political executions which took place in Montreal as the aftermath of the January insurrection were twelve in number. Six were convicted as murderers and five zealous insurgents of 1838. The last was a foreign adventurer. The executions were as follows:

Friday, December 21, 1839: Joseph Narcisse Cardinal, a notary and member of the Assembly for Beauharnois. Joseph Duquette, a young man who had followed his leader, Cardinal, in the attack of Caughnawaga.

Eighteenth of January, 1839: Pierre Theophile Decoigne, notary of Napierville, a leader in the insurrection of January, 1838, at Napierville. Joseph Jacques Robert, a farmer and leader. François Xavier Hamelin, a lieutenant of Robert; Ambroise Sanguinet, a captain; Charles Sanguinet, his brother, a lieutenant; who all four had been engaged in the murder, in 1838, of one, Walker, living at La Tortue, seven miles from La Prairie.

Fifteenth of February, 1839: Pierre René Narbonne, a house painter, present at Napierville. Marie Thomas, Chevalier de Lorimier, a lawyer, who had been prominent in the insurrection and had been engaged in the seizure of the “Lord Brougham”; François Nicholas and Amable Daunais, both acquitted of murder of Chartrand in 1837, but retaken on the occasion of their presence in the engagement of Odelltown, and Charles Hinderlang, taken at Odelltown, a foreign adventurer.

On the eve of their execution[5] the five last named were allowed to give a supper to their “compatriotes” imprisoned with them. It was a sorry repast. The Chevalier de Lorimier is reported to have said on this occasion: “Can my country ever forget that we die for her upon the scaffold? We have lived as patriots--as patriots let us die. Down with the tyrants! Their reign is over!” Next day, as Hindelang was approaching the gallows, de Lorimier called to him: “Courage, mon ami! the end is near!” “Death is nothing to a Frenchman,” was the reply. On his arrival at the scaffold Hindelang addressed the crowd. “On this scaffold, raised by English hands, I declare that I die with the conviction of having done my duty. The sentence which condemns me is unjust, but I willingly forgive my judges. The cause for which I die is noble and great. I am proud of it and I fear not to die. The blood shed will be redeemed by blood. Let the blameworthy bear the responsibility. Canadians! In bidding you adieu I bequeath to you the device of France! ‘Vive liberté.’” Nicholas also made a short address: “I have only one regret,” he said, “and that is, to die before seeing my country free, but Providence will end by having pity on it, for there is no country in the world more badly governed.” The Chevalier de Lorimier was the last to suffer the extreme penalty. When he was cut down, a brief letter was found on his breast addressed to his wife and children. It ended, “Adieu, my tender wife, once more adieu! Live and be happy. (Signed) Your unhappy husband, Chevalier de Lorimier.”[6]

Among the prominent Montrealers arrested in 1838 and 1839 the following names are found: Louis H. Lafontaine, Denis B. Viger, Charles Mondelet, François Desrivières, advocates; L.J. Harkins, D. Chopin, Aug. Racicot, George Dillon, Henry Badeau, Louis Coursolles, F. Pigeon, Cyrille David, François Blanchard, Louis Morin, William Brown, T. Willing, J.A. Labadie, J.B. Choquette, Derome P. de Boucherville, J. Donegani, M. de Marchand, Felix Goulet, Avila Weilbrenner, Richard Dillon, H. Hamelin, J.B. Houlée, A. Dupère, M. Bourbonnière, Samuel Newcombe, Pierre Lussier, François Lauzon, Luc Dufresne, E.A. Dubois, Bouthillier, John Fullum, François Contant, François St. Marie, E. Hauschman, J.E. Coderre, P. Coté, Jérémie Hippolyte, Jérémie Barrette, Leandre Ducharme, John McDonald, J. Berthelet, A. Perrault, E.R. Fabre, G.J. Vallée, Jean Dubrec, A.B. Lesperance, Jean Leclaire, Chevalier de Lorimier, François Cinq Mars, J.P.B. Belleville, S. Reeves, J.S. Ney Smith, Celestin Beausoleil, Louis Dubois, Jérémie Longpré, etc.

It is a significant commentary on the sad troubles of 1837-8 that the names of several prominent British Montrealers are to be found as actively sympathizing with the insurgents. The fact, too, that the “Vindicator,” conducted by Doctor O’Callaghan, could find sufficient English readers to support it, is another indication of a wider sympathy than usually recognized. A man like Dr. Wolfred Nelson who had lived with the French habitants at St. Denis, spoke their language and understood their grievances, a man of uprightness, sincerity and disinterestedness, would never have resisted authority and risked his reputation and fortune unless the irksomeness of the situation had become intolerable.[7] Writing from jail at Montreal on the 18th of June, 1838, to Lord Durham, he said on behalf of his fellow prisoners: “We rebelled neither against Her Majesty’s person nor her government, but against colonial misgovernment. * * * We remonstrated; we were derided. The press assailed us with calumny and contumely; invective was exhausted; we were goaded on to madness and were compelled to show we had the spirit of resistance to repel injuries or to be deemed a captive, degraded and recreant people. We took up arms not to attack others but to defend ourselves.”

His imprisonment and his loss of fortune effected his health, but without repining he boldly played the game of life. In 1843 a “nolle sequi” allowed him to return to practice medicine in Montreal. He was shortly elected to the Assembly under the Union. He became twice mayor of his native city. He was one of the first harbour commissioners and became the inspector of prisons. In siding with the insurgents he was no hair-brained enthusiast or adventurer and he died without the stain of reproach--an honoured citizen.

It has been felt necessary to delay long on this unpleasant part of civic history because it exemplifies the evil of different races living together with mistrust and misunderstanding of one another. If they would but strive to see each other’s viewpoints and would read each other’s history there would be an end of racial prejudices.

“Tout savoir, c’est tout pardonner.” May the mutual misunderstanding of 1837-8 never occur again. “Concordia Salus,” the motto chosen by Jacques Viger, the first mayor of Montreal, for the city arms, should never be forgotten.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr. Debartzch, of St. Charles, a legislative councillor, had till this date been a strenuous upholder of Mr. Papineau. The turn of events seemed to him to be unconstitutional and he became opposed to the new insurrectionary methods. He was now accounted a traitor. He escaped to Montreal with his family.

[2] On November 16th Mr. Turton Penn, one of the justices of the peace, signed the order for the imprisonment of Charles A. Leblanc (afterwards sheriff), Jean Dubrec, Amable Simard, Georges de Boucherville, Andre Ouimet and François Tavernier accused of high treason on November 17th, Jean François Bossé Lionnais, and on the 18th Louis Michel Viger (Beau Viger), the president of the recently founded Banque du Peuple and father of D.B. Viger were imprisoned; on the 21st Michel Vincent, and on the 26th, Narcisse Lamothe suffered the same fate.

[3] The following constituted the first special council, District of Quebec: The Honorable C.E.C. de Léry (Quebec); the Honorable James Stuart (Quebec); John Wilson, Esq., and William Walker, Esq. (Quebec); Amable Dionne, Esq. (Kamouraska); Charles Casgrain, Esq. (Rivière Oulle); the Honorable R.P. de Sales de la Terrière (Eboulements), District of Montreal: The Honorable T. Pothier; P. McGill; P. de Rocheblave (Montreal); Samuel Gerrard, Esq.; Jules Quesnel, Esq.; W.P. Christie, Esq.; Turton Penn, Esq.; and John Molson, Esq. (Montreal); the Honorable J. Cuthbert (Berthier); the Honorable B. Joliette (St. Paul Lavaltrie); Joseph E. Fairbault, Esq. (L’Assomption); Paul H. Knowlton, Esq. (Brome); Icabod Smith, Esq. (Stanstead). District of Three Rivers: Joseph Dionne, Esq. (St. Pierre les Becquets); Etienne Mayrand, Esq. (Rivière du Loup).

[4] Lord Durham did not live to see the eventual success of the Union recommended by his famous report. Prematurely worn out, he died at Cowes on the 28th of July, 1840.

[5] See “Histoire Populaire de Montreal,” p. 357. LeBlond Brumath.

[6] See “Histoire Populaire de Montreal,” p. 357. LeBlond Brumath.

[7] Writing a reminiscence of Montreal from 1818 to 1868. Mr. Thomas Storrow Brown has the following allusion to 1837-8: “Mixing much with these French Canadians, I became interested in the cause. I thought the stipulation of the capitulation had not been fulfilled to a ceded people and when grown to manhood a sense of justice, that generous inheritance from a British ancestry, urged me to a knight errancy in their battle that terminated in the overthrow of my own fortunes and that after years of hard struggle to regain a lost position, all for no thanks or even recognition of service.”

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XVIII. PROCLAMATION OF THE UNION

1841

HOME RULE FOR THE COLONY

THE DURHAM REPORT--THE RESOLUTIONS AT THE CHATEAU DE RAMEZAY--LORD SYDENHAM--THE PROCLAMATION OF UNION AT MONTREAL--RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT AT LAST.

Durham was wisely lenient with the political prisoners waiting for trial at Montreal, but his injudicious step in securing confessions, through an intermediary, from Doctor Nelson and his companions--by inducing them to place themselves at his discretion, and then his condemnation of them without trial to be transported to Bermuda, forbidding them to return under pain of high treason, and his extraordinary ordinance declaring that Papineau and the fifteen others who had escaped and had neither confessed nor been found guilty should suffer death if they returned to Lower Canada--was held in the English parliament, on the initiative of his enemy, Lord Brougham, to be utterly subversive of the principles of English colonial law. Accordingly his ordinance was disallowed; hence his resignation and return to England. He died about eighteen months later, a broken man. But he did much for Canada and his famous report stands out a masterpiece of statesmanship. It is to the credit of Adam Thom, of Montreal, to have been associated in its compilation as Durham’s secretary for the purpose.

This report of Durham has had far reaching effect. It was based on a study of the situation. He found an acute political association as follows:

The Assembly complained that the constitutional government given them in 1791 was a mockery. They could elect members but members who had no control, who might fret and fume and froth but could not appoint a single crown servant. In name it was a representative body, French, Catholic and popularly elected. The legislative council was all powerful, its members nominated by the government, and holding their offices permanently, but British, Protestant and exclusive, and above all the clatter was the Executive Council and the governor, who were dependent hand and foot on Downing Street officialdom and from it received instructions, so that the few ruled the many, independently of the council’s representation of the latter. Thus a race war had developed, the majority, French, savagely demanding their rights of popular representation and the minority, British, desirous of keeping the upper hand. Thus the French Assembly developed into a permanent opposition to everything British till it flamed out into recourse to arms when British and French paired off into distinct camps.

“I expected,” says Durham in his report, “to find a contest between a government and a people. I found two nations warring in the bosom of a single state. I found a struggle not of principles but of races.” Hence his grand solution was “home rule” for the colony and the abolition of the Downing Street restrictive régime of red tape. He was accused by the British of deserting his own side; he pleased the French-Canadians by this above recommendation but bitterly disappointed them by making responsible government dependent on the Union of the Canadas, for it was feared by this Union with Protestant Ontario their national existence was jeopardized. But this was precisely what Durham wanted, trusting in the inevitable growth of immigration: “I have little doubt,” he says, “that the French, when once placed in a majority by the legitimate course of events and the working of natural causes in a minority, would abandon their vain hopes of nationality.”

Durham looked forward to the time when British North America should have one parliament only. Thus he foresaw confederation.

Lord Durham’s masterly and statesmanlike report was presented to the Imperial parliament on January 31, 1839. It advocated the repeal of the Constitutional Act of 1791, which divided the two provinces and so created two distinct nationalities, and it recommended the legislative Union of the Canadas. The bill proposed for this effect by Lord John Russell was postponed till next year. Another bill, however, passed to continue the legislative council in their especial powers till 1842. Canada was still, therefore, without a constitution.

The new governor general to succeed Sir John Colborne, who had been invested with the Grand Cross of the Bath for his services, arrived at Quebec on October 17th. He was Mr. Charles Poulett Thomson, who had been president of the Board of Trade in England. He entered on his office on October 19th. He left for Montreal in October to meet the legislative council, now established there.

The news of the proposed union was grateful, especially at Montreal, to the British merchant class, who foresaw commercial expansion and progress. At Quebec there was some dissension, since the meeting place of the projected union parliament was likely to be at Montreal, and thus Quebec would lose its ancient prestige. The measure was not as yet looked on with full favour by the French-Canadians in general, as it seemed to them to be a scheme to weaken the influence of their political life and to be destructive of their national aspirations. On the 11th of November the legislative council of Lower Canada met and on the 16th six resolutions were passed at the Château de Ramezay.

First: The Union was affirmed to be an indispensable and urgent necessity. Second: that the determination to reunite the Provinces received ready acquiescence. Third: that suitable civil lists should be provided securing the independence of the judges and maintaining the executive in its functions. Fourth: that the proportion of debt of Upper Canada contracted for the improvement of internal communication should be charged to the revenue of both provinces; the outlay for defraying expenses of a local character not to be included. Fifth: that the adjustment and settlement of the terms of Union should be submitted to the wisdom and justice of the Imperial parliament. Sixth: that a permanent legislature composed of the people of both Provinces should be convened as soon as possible.

The resolutions were carried with three dissenters, Messrs. Cuthbert (Berthier), Neilson (Quebec) and Quesnel (Montreal), the members of the council supporting the union being Chief Justice Stuart, Pothier, de Léry and Walker (Quebec), McGill, de Rocheblave, Gerrard, Christie, Molson, Moffatt (Montreal), Harwood and Hale (Sherbrooke).

The majority of the legislative assembly being ready for the union of the provinces, which was an equivalent to yielding to responsible government power they had held so long and arbitrarily, must be noted as significant of the trend of opinion. Some ordinances were passed: first, continuing until June, 1840, the power to retain arms and gunpowder; second, continuing the ordinance relating to persons charged with high treason; third, incorporating the Ecclesiastics of Montreal in the fief and seignories of St. Sulpice and of Two Mountains--the conclusion of many years’ negotiations.

On November 18th Mr. Paulett Thomson wrote from Montreal to Lord John Russell to urge the speedy adoption of the Union by parliament. He wrote: “All parties look with extreme satisfaction on the present state of government. * * * The suspension of all constitutional rights affords to reckless and unprincipled agitators a constant topic of excitement. * * * All parties, therefore, without an exception, demand a change. On the nature of that change there undoubtedly exists some difference of opinion. The large majority, however, of those whose opinions I have had the opportunity of learning, both of British and French origin, and of those, too, whose character and station enable them to the greatest authority, advocate warmly the establishment of the union and that upon terms of perfect fairness, not merely to the two provinces but to the two races within the provinces.” Mr. Thomson then left for the Upper Province, arriving at Toronto on November 21st.

The union bill of Lord John Russell received the royal sanction on July 23, 1840, but it did not take effect till February 10, 1841. On this day the union was solemnly established at Montreal. Mr. Paulett Thomson now became Lord Sydenham of York and Toronto in recognition of his part in the union. He took the oath of office as governor-general in 1840.

February 10, 1841, Lord Sydenham issued a proclamation uniting Upper and Lower Canada into the province of Canada.

“The choice of this date,” says Kingsford, “was because it was on this day that the Imperial parliament assented to the act which had suspended the constitution of Lower Canada three years previously, and it was thought an act of wisdom to re-establish on the anniversary of this extreme measure constitutional liberty, which effectively terminated it. It was also the date of the conclusion of the treaty of 1763, which ceded Canada to the British crown, and it was likewise the marriage day of the Queen.

“On that day, in Montreal, in the presence of all the dignitaries of the church and of civil life, of the commander of the forces, of officers commanding regiments, and all who could be collected of the principal citizens, the oath was taken and the two provinces were established as the province of Canada.

“Lord Sydenham issued a proclamation on this occasion, in which he urged the inhabitants to be united in sentiment as in name and reminded them that they were ‘a part of the mighty empire of England, protected by her arms, assisted by her treasury, admitted to all the benefits of trade as her citizens, their freedom guaranteed by her laws, and their rights supported by the sympathy of their fellow-subjects there.’”

Lord Sydenham lived to call the first session of the United Province, which met at Kingston on June 14th, when Mr. Cuvillier was elected speaker, and on July 15th His Excellency gave the speech from the throne, but he was a sick man and he never lived to the close of the session. The prorogation of the legislature had been appointed for September 15th. It was deferred till September 17th to allow him to be present, since on September 4th he had met an accident horse-riding (taken for his health) in the neighbourhood of Kingston. He died on September 19th. “The Success of the Union,” as Kingsford[1] remarks, in the last chapter of his “History of Canada,” “is Lord Sydenham’s epitaph.”

Responsible government was at last attained. The union so ardently denied by the British party and needlessly feared by the other was to bring progress and prosperity to both. The Union was not a perfect measure, but it redressed many grievances and made for a more united people.

“The act provided for a legislative council of not less than twenty members for a legislative assembly in which each section of the united province would be represented by an equal number of members--that is to say, forty-two for each, or eighty-four in all. The speaker of the council was appointed by the crown and ten members, including the speaker, constituted a quorum. A majority of voices was to decide and in case of an equality of votes the speaker had a casting vote. A legislative counsellor would vacate his seat by continuous absence from two consecutive sessions. The number of representatives allotted to each province could not be changed except with the concurrence of two-thirds of the members of each house. The quorum of the assembly was to be twenty, including the speaker. The speaker was elected by the majority and was to have a casting vote in case of the votes being equal on a question. No person could be elected to the assembly unless he possessed a free-hold of land and tenements to the value of £500 sterling over and above all debts and mortgages. The English language alone was to be used in legislative records. A session of the legislature should be held at least every year and each legislative assembly was to have a duration of four years unless sooner divided.” (Bourinot’s “Constitution of Canada,” page 35.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr. Kingsford published, after twelve years of labour the last of his ten volumes of the “History of Canada,” in 1898. The preface was signed “Ottawa, 24th of May, 1898.” He died on September 29, 1898. His work is that of a conscientious historian and the facts he has marshalled together are invaluable to students.

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XIX. RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT UNDER THE UNION

KINGSTON THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT--THE RACE CRY RESUSCITATED--LAFONTAINE--RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT--MONTREAL ELECTIONS--RESTRICTION REMOVED ON FRENCH LANGUAGE IN PARLIAMENT--FREE TRADE MOVEMENT--FINANCIAL DEPRESSION--GEORGE ETIENNE CARTIER--REBELLION LOSSES BILL--THE BURNING OF THE PARLIAMENT HOUSE--THE MONTREAL MOVEMENT FOR ANNEXATION WITH THE STATES--“CLEAR GRITS” AND THE “PARTI ROUGE”--THE RAILWAY AND SHIPPING ERA--THE GAVAZZI RIOT--THE RECIPROCITY TREATY--EXIT THE OLD TORYISM--CLERGY RESERVES AND SEIGNEURIAL TENURE ACTS--THE MILITIA ACT--MONTREALERS ON THE ELECTED COUNCIL--THE Année Terribe OF 1857--THOMAS D’ARCY MC GEE--QUEBEC TEMPORARY SEAT OF GOVERNMENT--PROTECTION FOR HOME INDUSTRIES--CONFEDERATION BROACHED IN MONTREAL--THE TRENT AFFAIR--ST. ALBAN RAID PROSECUTIONS--THE REMODIFIED CIVIL CODE--FENIAN RAID EXCITEMENT IN MONTREAL--OTTAWA SEAT OF GOVERNMENT--THE BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN ACT--CONFEDERATION.

The seat of the new parliament was chosen for Kingston. This was naturally regarded jealously by Montreal and Quebec. The Montreal elections resulted in the sending thither of Mr. Benjamin Holmes and the Hon. George Moffatt to represent the city at the first session, which opened for the dispatch of business on the 14th of June, 1841. Mr. D.B. Viger was elected for the Richelieu district. Another well known at Montreal, one who had there conducted the “Minerve,” Mr. Augustus Norbert Morin, sat for Nicolet.

The language of the house was English. This, together with the absence of any French name from the new cabinet ministry was a natural grievance which was seized upon by a part of the French press and race hatred seemed in danger of being renewed. The following extract from a British Montreal paper of the day adverts to this:

“It is but a few weeks since the olive branch has been frankly and honorably extended, since several English journals earnestly advocated an oblivion of the past and a reconciliation of the future. We must own that, however much we respect the attempt, we never anticipated that it would be successful, and we daily find in the pages of the Canadien, the French Gazette, the Aurora and the other small fry, the proof of our prognostication. It is the truth, a truth boldly and continually proclaimed by the above mentioned public journals printed in the French language, that the Canadian leaders and all who aspire to lead this class of the population, now, as heretofore, must base their only pretentions to popular support on their utter and entire abhorrence of everything that is English. The word ‘anti-British’ is the type of their political existence, the only true passports to the affections of a French constituency. They hate us not because we are unionists or anti-unionists, whigs, tories, radicals or conservatives, but because we are British. They hate us not because we are Catholics, Protestants, Presbyterians or Methodists, but because we are British. They hate us because we speak English, because we love English laws, because we admire English constitutions, because we would introduce English improvements, because we have given them two or three good English drubbings and are ready to give them again if provoked. First they hate the Briton, secondly the American and lastly their seigneurs and clergy are included in the same category, and if they could only accomplish what they never will, get rid of the Briton, they would be rapidly ‘used up’ by the Americans, who would rob their seigneurs, discard their priests and improve the ‘nation Canadienne’ off the face of the earth.”

It is pleasing to find that our newspapers of today do not reflect a like jarring exchange of bitterness. Montreal has learned that its “salvation lies in harmony,” according to the city’s motto, “Concordia Salus.”

The session passed without any hitch. The Union act had stood its test. The advent of Sir Charles Bagot as governor-general with his policy of reconciliation saw M. Joseph Remi Vallières appointed chief justice of the district of Montreal and Dr. Jean Baptiste Meilleur the superintendent of public instruction for Lower Canada. When parliament met on September 8, 1842, Montreal looked with interest for the development likely to follow on the entrance into the House of Mr. Louis Hippolyte Lafontaine, an able lawyer who had practiced at Montreal and who was known to be a born leader of men and to have succeeded to the position of M. Papineau in popular estimation. His short imprisonment as a rebel in 1838 added to his prestige. He was an old parliamentarian, having been in 1830, when only twenty-three years of age, elected to the assembly of Lower Canada. On October 12th the reconstructed government[1] saw the Hon. L.H. Lafontaine as attorney-general for Lower Canada (his friend, the Hon. Robert Baldwin, held the same office for Upper Canada) and the Hon. A.N. Morin, commissioner of crown lands. These appointments made the Union more palatable to French-Canadians and it began to appear that out of evil good was to come.

During the next session of 1843 question of the future location of the parliament was settled by the choice of Montreal, on the motion of Mr. Baldwin, seconded by Mr. Lafontaine.

The full signification of the term “Responsible Government” now began to be tested. The new governor, Sir Charles Metcalfe, who had been sworn in on March 29, 1843, had come from Bengal with Indian ideas of dictatorship and he acted now independently of his ministers, making appointments without consultation with them, so that nine out of ten of the ministers resigned on November 26th on the ground that by the system of responsible government adopted in the resolutions of the house in September, 1841, to carry on a government the ministry must not only have the confidence of the house and through it of the people, but also of the head of the government. For nine months, therefore, the country was without a ministry, Sir Charles Metcalfe being unable to construct one.

At this point Mr. D.B. Viger came into prominence as a supporter of the governor and it was his efforts to win over the French-Canadians. Accordingly he visited Montreal and Lower Canada to be followed by Mr. Draper, but Lafontaine’s hold was too great. The hold-up of government created much anxiety, and trade and industry were affected. After great efforts a partial ministry was formed, the post of attorney-general for Lower Canada being accepted by Mr. James Smith, of Montreal, Mr. Denis Benjamin Papineau, a brother of Louis Joseph, becoming commissioner of lands. Other offices were filled but the completion of the names was left until after the election.

These were held over the country mid scenes of riot and even bloodshed. At no place was the party strife more keenly shown than at Montreal. By an election scheme it is said, to the surprise of the opposition who ought to have commanded a majority, the Hon. George Moffatt and Charles Clement Sabrevois de Bleury, supporters of the newly formed ministry, were elected against Mr. Lewis Thomas Drummond, a lawyer of Irish Catholic origin, afterwards a well known judge, and Doctor Beaubien. Mr. Drummond was returned, however, for Port Neuf. Among the new members of other constituencies Dr. Wolfred Nelson was returned for Richelieu against D.B. Viger, the president of the new council, who found a seat, however, elsewhere. John Alexander Macdonald was returned for Kingston as a supporter of the government. The new government entered into power with a small majority. Early in 1844 the government moved from Kingston to Montreal and Monklands became the home of the governor-general. On July 1st the Parliament met in Montreal, being dissolved on September 23d.

On November 12th the general elections began, the like of which had never been seen in Canada. The voting in these times was open, lasting for days. Citizens were keen politicians; axe handles were in readiness; heads were broken and the “claret” flowed. Party spirit ran high and men were kept drunk in the taverns so as not to allow them to reach the polls. In this election at Montreal, Drummond was opposed to Molson, who was beaten. On November 28th parliament met and was prorogued on March 29th of the following year.

The removal of the restrictions on the French language in parliament took place on January 31, 1845. Mr. Lafontaine had desired to make the motion, but his plan, having become known to the new government, desirous of furthering a popular move, he was anticipated by Mr. D.B. Papineau, seconded by the Hon. George Moffatt of Montreal.

In 1846 the merchants of Montreal held meetings to protest against the Free Trade movement, then being promoted in England by Cobden. On January 30, 1847, Lord Elgin, the successor of Sir Charles Metcalfe, proceeded from Monklands, the home of the governor-general of Montreal, to be sworn in at Government House. On May 31st Mr. Peter McGill became speaker of the legislative council, with a seat in the cabinet of the reconstructed cabinet, known as the Sherwood-Daly ministry. Mr. D.B. Papineau was the only French-Canadian in it. Parliamentary life this year was affected by the evils of the “ship fever” brought over by the Irish emigrants who had made their exodus after the failure of the potato crop. The opposition made political capital out of the event by making the government responsible for the emigration laws of the country.

On Friday, the 25th of February, 1848, the new parliament was held at Montreal. Messrs. L.H. Lafontaine and Benjamin Holmes were returned for the city. On the occasion Mr. L.J. Papineau, who had been in pleasant exile so long in Paris, although he could have returned in 1843, found himself elected in the Union parliament. He was little changed, but his star had waned, while that of Lafontaine was in the ascendant. On March 10th Mr. Lafontaine accepted office as Premier and attorney-general and with his friend Baldwin formed the Lafontaine-Baldwin ministry. During this year the Canadian merchants suffered great commercial depression, owing to the working out of the free trade act of 1846. “Three-fourths of the merchants were bankrupt and real estate was practically unmarketable.”

The session of 1849 saw the advent into political life of George Etienne Cartier, the erstwhile rebel. He was born in Verchères county, at St. Antoine, but was educated at the college of St. Sulpice at Montreal. His early law studies were in the office of M. Edouard Rodier and he was called to the bar and began practice in Montreal in 1835. He came early under the magnetic influence of Mr. Papineau and we find him a member of the “Fils de Liberté” and engaged in the fight under Doctor Nelson at St. Denis, thence flying as a proscribed man to the States. He quietly returned later, when the embargo was raised, and settled down again to practice law at Montreal, but still keeping his attention on politics.

An important bill came up this session entitled “an act to provide for the indemnification of parties in Lower Canada whose property was destroyed during the rebellion in the years 1837 and 1838.” It was called the Rebellion Losses Bill. It would seem rather belatedly brought in but it had been promised in some form during the past ten years as a means of indemnifying those who had suffered from the very great destruction of property during that agitated period. In 1845 the rebellion losses committee first sat. On April 18th the commissioners reported that they recognized 2,276 claims, amounting in the aggregate to £241,965, and were of the opinion that £100,000 would be sufficient to pay all real losses. On January 18, 1849, Mr. Lafontaine moved the belated bill. It made provision for the appointment of five commissioners to carry out the act and a sum of £100,000 was appropriated to pay the claims. Those, however, who had been convicted of treason during the rebellion and who had been sent to Bermuda, were excepted from claiming any share in the grant. This, it will be seen, allowed “rebels” who had not been convicted, an equal right to compensation with the “loyalists.” Consequently a storm broke out in parliament and in the country, but especially in Montreal. Various pamphlets appeared in Montreal at this time, indicating opposition, such as that entitled “The Question Answered; Did the Ministry intend to pay Rebels? Montreal, 1849,” supposed to have been written by the Hon. Alexander Morris, then a law student, and a young tory journalist, Hugh E. Montgomerie. Yet the government was right in their inclusion of “rebels” for it would have been very unwise at that period to reopen the question as to who had been rebels and who had not. Besides the amnesty granted long since had plastered over all differences.

Yet, within and without Parliament the opposition was loud, fierce and tumultuous. The bill, however, passed the third reading in both houses. For some time previously petitions from the tories of the opposition body had been pouring in to Lord Elgin, praying that the bill should either be reserved for Imperial sanction, or that parliament should be dissolved. Lord Elgin, who personally did not approve of the diversion of so much public money from more useful objects, feeling, however, that while no imperial interests were at stake, that the principle of responsible government was assented to the bill when it had passed both houses. This he did on Wednesday afternoon, the 25th of April, 1849. On this occasion the galleries of the house were packed with “loyalist” opponents to the bill, and a tumult immediately arose which was continued as the crowd went out down the stairs to await Lord Elgin’s departure. When the governor-general, having finished his business, reached the front door, a hostile crowd had gathered and the fury of the opponents to the bill visited itself on him in oppobrious epithets. Groans, hisses, mud and addled eggs brought for the purpose were hurled at him. Some say also stones were added and in the midst of this hostile demonstration he drove off to Monklands, surrounded by the military, by a long detour east and round the mountain to his home. Three days afterwards at a special meeting of the Scotch National Association, the “St. Andrew’s Society,” a resolution was passed, erasing his name as a patron and an honorary member of that body.

That night about 8 o’clock the parliament buildings were burned by an angry mob. It was not unpremeditated, for the day previously even some of the soldiers were warned to shut their eyes next day if anything happened, and many did. After the signing of the bill a meeting was held on Champ de Mars as the result of printed notices, at which inflammatory speeches were made. One of the leaders was a Fred Perry, who lived to be sorry for his deed. “We are not in ’37,” he cried. “If you are men follow me to the parliament house!” and he drove in a buggy, surrounded by a sympathetic crowd, some carrying lighted torches and crying, “To the parliament house.” The parliament building which had been built as St. Ann’s market and leased to the government, was a two-story building, the bottom floor of which was remodeled to contain the government offices, while upstairs, at the head of a broad staircase, leading off a wide passage, were two halls, one that of the legislative assembly, a room 342 by 50 feet, and the other of the legislative council. Meanwhile the house of assembly was discussing the judicature bill, and it was warned by the noise of the advancing mob. When the crowd reached the building, at a given signal stones crashed through the windows like hail. A rush was made by some of the crowd into the assembly hall from which the members had retreated. One of the mob named Courtney sat boldly in the Speaker’s chair and muttered threats about dissolving the parliament. The work of demolition was begun, sticks being thrown at the glass globes on the gaseliers that were out of reach. Then there was raised the cry of “fire!” The gas pipes in the building had been cut and a light applied. An explosion followed and a blinding sheet of flame lit up the scene. Then ensued a mad rush of the members and their friends and enemies to get out of the building. The mob made no attempt to save it. The fire engines were only used upon the surrounding property and an eye witness relates that the soldiers who were ordered to fire on the mob discharged their shots in the air. In half an hour the whole building was wrapped in one sheet of flame. The valuable library containing the archives and records of the colony was destroyed. In the beginning of the incendiarism lighted torches thrown through the window began the sad work of destruction. Little was saved but the mace and the picture of Queen Victoria with the gilt crown surmounting it. A newspaper account of two days later stated in effect “that the Queen’s picture was carried away by four scoundrels.” These have lately been identified as Colonel Wiley, formerly chief of police, a Scotchman of the name of McGillivray, from the eastern townships, an employee of the parliament, the uncle of Mr. Todd, of the Library of Parliament, and Mr. Sanford Fleming (afterwards Sir).

The latter in reply to the historian, Henry J. Morgan, wrote in 1901:

“Having spent a number of days previously in examining rare books, I felt I should try to save some of them. I gained an entrance but the fire had taken possession of the library and I could do nothing. Turning to the legislative hall I saw the Queen’s picture. With three other men (then) unknown to me I made an effort to save it, but it was no easy matter. It was in a massive gilt frame, firmly bolted to the wall. We at last put our shoulders underneath and raised the whole, little by little, allowing it to fall down each time. This was repeated many times till at last the fastenings gave way and all came down. We laid it on its face and, not being able to carry very easily the heavy frame, removed the canvas on its stretching frame and the four of us carried it out in a horizontal position, a shoulder under each corner. With difficulty we got it downstairs on account of the flames passing overhead, but each stooped and covered the picture to prevent it getting scorched and thus got it to the open door. Having done so, I left it to be taken to a place of safety by others, some of whom were connected with the House. I thought I would return to the chamber to try to save something else, but I saw nothing of much value which I could myself remove. I did, however, carry out the gilded crown which had been over the picture, carrying it to Mack’s Hotel, where I was stopping, and afterwards took it with me in a tea chest to Toronto, where it remained in my possession for some years. What afterwards became of it I am not aware.” The picture of Queen Victoria is in the House of Commons at Ottawa.

The most unpopular man of the hour after Lord Elgin was Mr. L.H. Lafontaine, who was in charge of the bill. His stables were burnt and his house ransacked. There were no proceedings taken against the rioters and incendiarists, this being an evident sign that many of those in power secretly sympathized with the movement. The house of Mr. Hays, on Dalhousie Square, was leased for a temporary parliament house, but shortly afterwards government moved to Toronto and Montreal lost its position as the political capital of Canada.

In August, 1849, the British American League was formed in Montreal with branches at Toronton, Kingston and elsewhere in Upper Canada. It had various aims--the chief planks being opposition to the existing government, a return to a protective policy, the election of members of the legislative council, and most important of all, a general union of the British North American provinces. A meeting was held in Kingston towards the end of July. Among the chief speakers were George Moffatt and Hugh E. Montgomerie, of Montreal, John A. Macdonald, of Kingston, also spoke. The League did not hold together, but the extreme party soon banded together and in consequence during the month of October a manifesto “to the people of Canada,” advocating the annexation of Canada to the United States, appeared in Montreal, signed by many leading citizens, including the Torrances, the Redpaths, the Molsons, the Workmans, the Dorions, Luther Hamilton Holton, Benjamin Holmes, David Lewis Macpherson, Jacob de Witt, Edward Goff Penny, D. Lorn Macdougall and John Ross--325 signatures in all. L.J. Papineau threw in his weight to the movement. Among the subscribers to the manifesto were justices of the peace, officers of the militia, Queen’s counsels and others holding commissions at the pleasure of the crown. Men of different political parties forgot their differences to promote the scheme. The ebullition was the outcome of the commercial depression and unpromising outlook then prevailing. The manifesto, after pointing out the deplorable state of the country, proceeded to suggest the remedies: the revival of protection in the markets of the United Kingdom; the protection of home manufactures; a federal union of the British American colonies as a federal republic and reciprocal free trade with the United States. But the most sweeping remedy of all was the last one suggested, namely, a “friendly and peaceful separation from British connection; a union upon equitable terms with the great North American Confederacy of Sovereign States,” in brief, annexation.[2] The movement was known in England and the Morning Advertiser of London of the period said in comment that England would be no loser were the Canadas to carry their threat of annexation into effect; indeed, England would gain.

“The result,” it says, “of careful examination of the Canadian connection in all its aspects, is, that so far from England being a sufferer from the renunciation of their allegiance to the British Crown on the part of the Canadas, she would be an actual gainer. It is a well ascertained fact that the expenses of the connection have more than counterbalanced its advantages. The maintenance of that part of our colonial possessions subjects us to a yearly expenditure of £800,000 hard cash. Will any one tell us that the Canadas confer on us benefits at all equivalent to this? It may, indeed, be debated whether our exports to the Canadas would not be as great as they have been at any former period. At any rate we speak advisedly when we say that this country would be no loser by the secession of the Canadas. That is certainly the conclusion at which ministers have arrived after the most able and careful consideration. On that conclusion they have determined to act. When the session meets we shall see the fact brought fully before the public, with the ground on which the cabinet has come to the conclusion at which it arrived.”

Such a statement, from a responsible English journal, sounds strangely to us even today--but it is of value in reminding us that at that time Britain was spending some four millions of dollars annually on the Canadas. Four years later, in 1854, the annexation movement received its quietus at the hands of Lord Elgin, when he secured the passage of the Reciprocity Treaty.

As there was no very general support in Canada, the movement soon collapsed. It was begotten of temporary gloom and despair. Annexation was thought by serious and well meaning men to be the necessary remedy--if it could come peaceably. Hence it was not rebellion. The annexation movement was communicated to the Upper Province, but it never had as great a hold anywhere as in Montreal. There was little aftermath beyond the cancelling of the commissions of those who held them at pleasure, a course deemed necessary as a protest by the governor general, Lord Elgin.

In the beginning of November of this year, 1849, the government offices were removed to Toronto. In the early part of 1850 a party known as the “Clear grits,” composed of the more progressive of the reform party in Upper Canada, and dissatisfied with the slowness of ministry, elaborated a programme which, among other heads, advocated, first, the complete application of the elective principle from the highest to the lowest member of the government, and, secondly, universal suffrage. A corresponding but more radical movement was organized at Montreal for Lower Canada by L.J. Papineau, under the title of “La Parti Rouge.” Its members were mostly young French-Canadians, although a number of British radicals were with them, such as L.H. Holton, and others. The “Parti Rouge” pronounced in favour of the repeal of the Union, of a republican form of government and of annexation to the States. “La Parti Rouge,” says La Minerve, the organ of the “bleus,” “has been formed at Montreal under the auspices of Mr. Papineau in hatred of English institutions, of our constitution, declared to be vicious, and above all, of responsible government which is regarded as a takein, with ideas of innovation in religion and in politics, accompanied by a profound hatred for the clergy and with the very formal and very pronounced intention of annexing Canada to the United States.” By the end of the year the prospects of trade had so brightened that with this annexation and other desperate remedies were forgotten. In October the first provincial exhibition of agricultural and industrial products was held at Montreal.

During the session of 1851, the legislation for railways was of primary importance to Montreal; if it was to keep its place as the center of transportation by land as it had been by water it would now enter into its new railroad era forced by the competing enterprises of the adjoining republics. In October the great Lafontaine-Baldwin ministry resigned. Mr. Lafontaine resumed his law practice at Montreal. In the month of August, 1853, he became chief justice of Lower Canada and held that position to his death, February 26, 1864. Ten years previously, in 1854, he was created a baronet. Sir L. Hippolyte Lafontaine’s name and fame stand high in the remembrance of Montreal.

On the 6th of November the existing parliament was dissolved. In the following elections Mr. John Young was returned from Montreal and was given a place in the Hincks-Morin cabinet as commissioner of public works. Mr. Papineau was defeated in Montreal, but found a seat for the county of Two Mountains. In the early part of 1852 Mr. Hincks visited England and arranged for the capitalizing of the Grand Trunk Railway to proceed westward from Montreal. Consequently during the fourth parliament’s first session at Quebec, which opened on August 19th, conspicuous among the acts passed was one to incorporate the Grand Trunk Railway. Other acts interesting to Montrealers were the municipal loan fund act to enable municipalities to borrow money on the credit of the province for local improvement, an act for the establishment of a trans-Atlantic line of steamers and the appropriating of £19,000 sterling per annum for the purpose. The contract was secured by McKean, McLarty & Company, of Liverpool, and steamers began to run during the following spring. Two years later the contract was annulled and an arrangement was made with Messrs. Edmonstone, Allan & Company, of Montreal. The small fleet of the last named company has since developed into the well known Allan line of trans-Atlantic steamships. On October 23d Mr. Charles Wilson, mayor of Montreal, was added to the legislative council. Before the session ended there occurred the famous Gavazzi riots in Quebec and Montreal, the latter place especially maintaining its reputation for mob violence. As the government was afterwards attacked for delay in ordering an unavoidable and searching investigation into the perpetrators of the fatal disaster at Montreal the story may be told here rather than in the ecclesiastical history of the city. During the spring of 1853 Alessandro Gavazzi, an ex-monk, had been giving a course of lectures in the States, mostly against Romanism. He had previously been received with success in England. Posing as an Italian patriot of liberty, with the reputation for impassioned and eloquent oratory and the added piquancy of being an ex-priest, he had attracted elsewhere a favourable hearing. But on his entrance to Lower Canada, at Quebec, he received a check on June 6th when delivering a lecture on the Inquisition in the Free Church on St. Ursule Street. A scene of disorder occurred in the church. The lecturer was attacked in the pulpit, and though he defended himself right valiantly with a stool, knocking down some sixteen of his assailants, he was overmastered and thrown on to the heads of the people below. Confusion reigned. The military were providentially soon on the scene and quiet obtained. The proceedings were sufficient to warrant an informal discussion in the House next day. On the night of the 9th of June Gavazzi was in Montreal, lecturing in Zion Church on the Haymarket square, now Victoria Square. Without, to prevent a recurrence of the Quebec assault, a posse of police was placed opposite the church, another in the Square and a small body of military, hard by, in concealment. These were the “Cameronians” but recently arrived in the city. There was an attempt of a body of Catholic Irishmen to break a way into the church, but they were repulsed. On retreating the second time a shot was fired by one of the intruders who was immediately shot down by a Protestant. Other shots followed. Confusion reigned. The lecture was hurriedly concluded and the people made for home. On the church being attacked the Gavazzi called for three cheers for the Queen and congratulated his hearers on freedom of speech being maintained. On their way through the streets shots were fired at them by the military. Who gave the order to fire has never been discovered. The mayor, the Hon. Charles Wilson, who had read the riot act, was accused and denied it. So also did Colonel Hogarth, of the Twenty-sixth Cameronian Rifles, also accused. It is said that the soldiers fired, at the order of some one in the crowd, but over the heads of the people, so that those making their way up Beaver Hall Hill received the shots. The Cameronians were very unpopular for a time. About forty were killed or wounded, of whom many were injured by stones and other missiles. Two women were struck down and almost trampled to death. The scene was one of frenzied riot, heightened by the screams of women. Gavazzi made his way between two clergymen to St. James street, narrowly escaping with his life. He afterwards escaped from St. Lawrence Hall in an inclosed cab to the wharf, where the Iron Duke took him to La Prairie. Thus his career ended in Canada. On June 26th an investigation was held into the causes of the riot, but nothing was the outcome and there were no apprehensions, at which there was much disapproval, as it was thought the affair was being hushed up as a political move. It is for this reason that the story has been inserted in this portion. The occasion was made an occasion of odium theologicum. At that time the St. Patrick’s Society, founded in 1834, was composed of Irishmen of different religions, but as Mr. Hincks and the mayor, the Hon. Charles Wilson, were both prominent members, Mr. Hincks was accused of being under the influence of the Roman Catholic majority for political purposes. Mr. Drummond, the attorney-general for Lower Canada, being a Catholic, was also accused in being dilatory in bringing the rioters to justice.

Parliament adjourned on the 14th of June. It did not meet again till June 13, 1854, just a day within the limit allowed by the thirty-first clause of the Union act. The chief reason for this was the absence of the governor and the premier in England and at Washington, at which latter place, on June 15th, the treaty of reciprocity was signed between the United States and Canada. The parliament was dissolved in view of the general elections to come in July and August, when the attitude of the people on the two great questions so long postponed, the clergy reserves and the seigneurial tenure was to be taken as an index of confidence and trust in the government. Mr. L.H. Holton and Mr. (afterwards Sir) A.A. Dorion, the leader of the “Parti Rouge,” since Mr. Papineau did not seek reelection, were returned for Montreal. The country as a whole had pronounced in favour of the abolition of the seigneurial tenure and the secularization of the clergy reserves. The parliament met on the 5th of September. The rejection of the ministerial candidate, George Etienne Cartier, for speaker in the assembly, in favour of Mr. Sicotte, indicated to Mr. Hincks and Mr. Morin that they could not carry on the administration against the combined opposition of the conservative, clear grits and the “Parti Rouge.” This was confirmed on September 7th when, on a question of privilege, the opposition carried it. On September 8th the resignation of the Hincks-Morin ministry was accepted by Lord Elgin. The government fell without dishonour. It had obtained the imperial acts enabling the Canadian parliament to deal with the clergy reserves and the application of the elective principle to the legislative council. It had completed the reciprocity treaty with the States and had inaugurated the era of Canadian railway. Montreal largely shared in the prosperity which prevailed in its term. The task of forming a new ministry was entrusted by Lord Elgin to Sir Allan MacNab. With the concurrence of Mr. Morin, Sir Allan effected a coalition between his own conservative following and the late liberal government resulting in the liberal-conservative alliance as the only method possible of obtaining a majority in the assembly capable of conducting the administration in accordance with the now accepted principle of responsible government. The death knell of the old toryism had been sounded. It also marked the virtual extinction of the British party in Lower Canada as a separate political body. Since that date there may be traced the growth of a more united policy in Montreal in the common welfare.

A bill giving effect to the reciprocity treaty with the United States was introduced by attorney-general (East), Hon. L.T. Drummond. The long delayed bill for secularizing the clergy reserves was introduced by Attorney-General (West), Hon. John A. Macdonald, and that abolishing the seigneurial tenure originally introduced by Mr. L.T. Drummond became law. By the former not only the Anglican establishment, but all churches were deprived of any participation in the funds accruing from the reserved lands granted for the support of the Anglican communion since the commencement of the British régime, a privilege that had been all along keenly contested by other denominations. It was now enacted that all proceeds arising from the sale of these lands should be placed into the hands of the receiver-general, by whom, after expenses were paid, they were to be apportioned equally among the several county and city municipalities in proportion to population.

The Seigneurial Tenure Act while abolishing the system of feudal rights and duties so long prevailing in Lower Canada, authorized the governor to provide commissioners to appropriate indemnifications for the despoiled seigneurs. Thus the two great questions which had long been exercising Montreal politicians were at last solved. Parliament was prorogued on the 18th of December and Lord Elgin concluded his office as governor-general with credit and honour.

Parliament opened on February 23, 1855. It was marked by the retirement of Mr. Morin from the ministry. The McNab-Taché administration was therefore formed. The Crimean war was now on, and as it became necessary to remove the Imperial Troops from Canada “a militia act was passed, which was the first step toward the modern organization of a regular volunteer force in Canada.”

The fifth parliament was opened at Toronto on the 15th of February, 1856. On Her Majesty’s birthday, May 24th, through the resignation of Sir Allan McNab, the Taché-Macdonald ministry assumed the reins, in which John A. Macdonald held the whip hand. In this session the postponed elective legislative council act was passed for which imperial authority had already been given. While those already in the legislative council were to retain their seats for life, every future member was to be elected by the people for a term of eight years. This continued till confederation, in 1867, when the system of appointment for life was reverted to. The Montreal members in the legislative council for 1856 were the Honourables Peter McGill, William Morris, Adam Ferrie, James Ferrier, Denis B. Viger, James Leslie, Frederic A. Quesnel, Joseph Bourret and Charles Wilson. This year the stringency in the money market was felt as the result of the Crimean war.

The year of 1857 is spoken of as l’année terrible. The toll of death was exacted as the price of advancing civilization. Near Hamilton seventy lives were lost by a train crashing through a bridge spanning the Desjardins canal. The steamer Montreal which plied between Montreal and Quebec, was burned so rapidly near Cape Rouge that about two hundred and fifty emigrants lost their lives. The harvest was a failure. By the beginning of winter trade had become almost stagnant. Mercantile disaster which was to last for a long time stared the wholesale and retail merchants in the face. Mercantile credit collapsed and every industry was crippled. Agriculture also shared in the general paralysis. The cause of this disastrous state was the public extravagance in that era of public works and railway development. The whirlwind was being reaped. During the year the Taché-Macdonald government had sat continuously from February 26th to June 10th. The premier, Colonel Taché, resigned on November 25th and thereupon the Hon. John A. Macdonald and the Hon. George Etienne Cartier formed their administration. At the general elections held in consequence at Montreal, Mr. A.A. Dorion, leader of the “Rouge Party,” was one of the few of his party returned, but Mr. Holton was defeated by the new attorney-general.

A new member for the city was the brilliant young Irishman, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, who had only been a year in Canada. He was, however, well known in the United States as a powerful journalist and public speaker imbued with Irish-American ideas. He was born in Carlingford, County Louth, in Ireland, in 1825. In his seventeenth year he went to the States and began journalism. In 1845 he undertook the editorship of the “Freeman’s Journal” in Dublin. Becoming identified with the New Ireland party and involved with Charles Gavan Duffy in the Smith-O’Brien’s insurrection, he escaped to New York, where he started the “New York Nation,” which was suppressed by Bishop Hughes for the attacks on the Irish hierarchy. At Boston he founded the “American Celt” and continued it at Buffalo for five years. Gradually he became reconciled to the hierarchy and received their support, so that his paper was the exponent in America of Irish Catholic opinions. In 1857 he accepted an invitation from the Irish party in Montreal to settle here. After having fulfilled the necessary period of “domicile” he was soon nominated for parliament, as we have seen.

The new parliament assembled on February 25th. It had become known after the election that Her Majesty had fixed upon Ottawa as the permanent seat of government. Parliament had ratified the choice and a sum of money had been appropriated for the erection of buildings. But there was serious opposition in many quarters. It broke out in the House on July 28th, when Mr. Dunkin moved an address to the Queen, praying Her Majesty to reconsider the decision and have Montreal named instead of Ottawa. Mr. Brown moved for an amendment for delay in the erection of buildings and the removal of government offices to Ottawa, and Mr. Piché moved as a further amendment that “in the opinion of this house Ottawa ought not to be the permanent government for the province.” The amendment was carried, supported by the opposition, and being considered by the minority equivalent to a vote of censure on Her Majesty, the government resigned on the following day. Mr. George Brown was put in charge of forming a ministry which was announced on Monday, August 2d. At once a vote of want of confidence in the new Brown-Dorion government, moved by Mr. Hector Langevin, was passed in the Assembly and in the Upper House. On Wednesday afternoon after having been in office for forty-eight hours and without having initiated a single act, parliamentary or administrative, the short-lived administration was forced to resign. On August 6th George Cartier becoming prime minister, the Cartier-Macdonald ministry virtually resumed the situation of the Macdonald-Cartier government of a few days ago. The portfolios, however, were exchanged and thus, by making use of a statute of 1857 there was avoided the necessity of the ministers going to the people for reelection. This was known as the “Double Shuffle.” The reconstructed government found themselves with a strong majority. During the session of this year the question of “protection to home industries,” a live subject at Montreal, came up for legislation and was followed by the protective tariff of the following year.

The government offices having been removed from Toronto, parliament met at Quebec on January 29th, for the government offices were not removed to Ottawa till 1865, where the first session was held in 1866. During this year the principle of Confederation began to be broached tentatively but surely, by the opposition party led by Mr. George Brown. A reform convention in Toronto held in November drew up a series of resolutions which, when compared with the British North American act of 1867, show a clear family likeness. At Montreal similar meetings were held under the auspices of Messrs. Dorion, Drummond, McGee and others for the same purpose of approving a federal union, but as yet the movement was weak in Lower Canada.

The sixth parliament met at Quebec for its fourth and last session on the 16th of March, 1861. By a proclamation of the governor-general on the 10th of June it came to an end.

On the 8th of November there occurred in mid-ocean, during the Civil war in the States between the North and South, the “Trent Incident,” which caused a commotion at Montreal and throughout Canada. The British Mail steamer Trent had on board the Confederate envoys, Messrs. Mason and Slidell, when they were forcibly taken prisoners by Captain Wilkes of the United States sloop of war San Jacinto. War looked inevitable and the Canadian Volunteers were augmented, drilled and ready for war. Regular military troops arrived also from England. The first day of the new year, 1862, saw the envoys delivered back to England and the danger of war was over. One result of the “Trent” affair was a great deepening of the Canadian sympathy, especially at Montreal, with the southern Confederacy.

In 1862 the Cartier-Macdonald government fell, on the occasion of their “Militia Bill,” on May 21st, and on the 24th the Macdonald (J.S.)-Sicotte ministry was sworn in, being succeeded on May 26, 1863, by the Macdonald (J.S.)-Dorion combination, which only lasted till the 2d of March, 1864, when the Taché-Macdonald (J.A.) again came into power. It was agreed upon, that the government should be pledged to introduce the federal principle into Canada and to aim at a confederation in which all British America should be “united under a general legislature based upon the federal principle.”

The idea of confederation as a remedy for government ills had occupied attention at intervals with increasing acuteness even before the Union of 1841. It had not been confined to Upper and Lower Canada, for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island had long discussed the idea of a union among themselves. Various political dreamers had forecasted it, no doubt following the lead of the United States. A meeting for the purpose being called at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, the coalition government of Canada sent eight ministers[3] to confer with their representatives on the merits of a larger scheme of union between all the provinces with the result that by agreement a further convention was to be held at Quebec on a day named by the governor general. His excellency fixed upon October 10th and notified the respective lieutenant governors of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. The result was the pledge to promote the projected confederation.

During the fall of this year, 1864, Montreal was the scene of the St. Alban’s Raid prosecutions. As already said, Canada and Montreal especially had sympathized with the Southerners. Many refugees had found a home here. Canada being so close to the frontier was, therefore, frequently used as the basis of southern plots. In the summer two vessels plying on Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, belonging to American merchants, had been seized and partially plundered by the southern refugees. In September St. Albans, a little town in Vermont, on the frontier, was raided by twenty-three southerners from Canada under the command of Bennett H. Young, an ex-Confederate soldier, who escaped to Canada on captured horses with $223,000 booty, after having plundered three local banks and shot one of the cashiers. Their excuse was that they were representatives of the Confederate States of America and they were there to retaliate the outrages committed by General Sherman. In November the trial of the captured rioters took place at Montreal and on March 30th they were discharged.

Parliament met on the 19th of January. It was prorogued on the 18th of March. During the following month four of the administration, J.A. Macdonald, Cartier, Brown and Galt, proceeded to England to discuss with the imperial government the scheme of confederation. The delegates returned in time for the opening of the last session of the Canadian legislature at Quebec on the 8th of August. The premier, Sir E.P. Taché, had died full of honours on the 30th of July. He was succeeded by Sir N.F. Belleau. During this session the bill was passed to carry out the recommendation of the commissioners appointed in 1857 “to reduce into one code to be called the civil code of Lower Canada those provisions of the laws of Lower Canada which relate to civil matters and are of a general and permanent character.” Attorney-General Cartier who had introduced the bill appointing the commission in 1857 had the satisfaction of seeing its labours adopted in 1865. The code came into operation in 1866. This was welcomed by the jurists of Montreal and Quebec, as it simplified the law, reducing order out of chaos; the abolition of the seigneurial tenure act of 1854 had rendered the codification very necessary. Parliament closed on the 18th of September. The public offices were removed to Ottawa during the autumn, but for a time the cabinet meetings were held at Montreal.

In the beginning of 1866 a delegation was sent by the government to Washington to obtain a renewal of the reciprocity treaty which came to an end this year. The mission was a failure. St. Patrick’s day, March 17th, was looked forward to in Canada by more than those of Irish nationality. For although during the year 1865 rumours had gone around that the Fenian Brotherhood of the States, organized about this time with a branch in Ireland to liberate Ireland, had determined to invade Canada as a base of their operations against England, they were not taken very seriously. But in 1866 the announcement of combined movements upon Canada to commence on St. Patrick’s day forced serious preparation for their reception and caused great anxiety over the country and much recruiting in volunteer circles. St. Patrick’s day passed and nothing happened. Beginning, however, in April and gaining strength in May and June, the filibustering Fenians massed their forces at various points, such as that marked by the raid under O’Neill upon the Niagara frontier in June, that of Ogdensburg, menacing a march upon Ottawa, and that at St. Albans on the Vermont frontier, where 1,800 men had collected on June 7th to pass over into Canada. In Montreal doubtless they hoped to find some sympathizers. None of these movements met eventual success and quiet was successfully maintained on the frontier by both governments. But these were the occasion of military ardour, shown by the enrollments of the militia and of general patriotism.

The parliament met at Ottawa on the 8th of June in the midst of the Fenian excitement. The address of His Excellency, the governor general, forecasted the hope that the next time parliament met at Ottawa it would be under the confederation of Province. It lasted to the 15th of August. About three months later a joint delegation of the representatives of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick met on December 4th in London at the Westminster Palace Hotel and a conference was held. Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland had seceded from the project. The upshot of the negotiations was such that on the 22d of May, 1867, the Confederation Act, technically known as “the British North American Act, 1867,” was proclaimed at Windsor Castle by Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, appointing the 1st of July following as the date upon which it should come into force. This act joined Canada (Upper and Lower), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into one Dominion, under the name of CANADA. There should be one federal parliament, consisting of the Queen, represented by the governor general, an upper house consisting of seventy-two life members appointed by the Crown, and a House of Commons elected on the principle of representation by population. Its jurisdiction was to affect matters concerning the Dominion at large. Each of the four provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick was to have a provincial legislature to manage its internal affairs. Each was to have a lieutenant governor. In Ontario the legislature consisted only of a house of assembly. In the other three provinces a council was added.

In the following year the northwest territories were added to the Dominion, in 1870 Manitoba, in 1871 British Columbia, and in 1873 Prince Edward Island, and in 1905 the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were established. Since confederation the history of Canada has been one of continued commercial and social development. The British North American act was the Magna Charta of Canadian nationhood.

Montreal is proud of the share it took in the promotion of Confederation.

LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY FOR MONTREAL DISTRICT FROM THE CONSTITUTIONAL ACT, 1791 TO CONFEDERATION, 1867

MEMBERS

Montreal (County)--

Papineau, Joseph July 10, 1792, to May 31, 1796 Walker, James July 10, 1792, to May 31, 1796 Ducharme, Jean-Marie July 20, 1796, to June 4, 1800 Guy, Et. July 20, 1796, to June 4, 1800 Papineau, Joseph July 28, 1800, to June 13, 1804 Walker, Thomas July 28, 1800, to June 13, 1804 Frobisher, Benjamin August 6, 1804, to April 27, 1808 Roy Portelance, Louis August 6, 1804, to March 22, 1814 Durocher, Jean Baptiste June 18, 1808, to July 12, 1811 Stuart, James December 4, 1811, to February 9, 1820 Richer, Augustin May 13, 1814, to February 9, 1820 Perrault, Joseph April 11, 1820, to September 2, 1830 Valois, Joseph April 11, 1820, to September 2, 1830

Montreal (East)-- Frobisher, Joseph July 10, 1792, to May 31, 1796 Richardson, John July 10, 1792, to May 31, 1796 Papineau, Joseph July 20, 1796, to June 4, 1800 Viger, Denis July 20, 1796, to June 4, 1800 Panet, Pierre Louis July 28, 1800, to June 13, 1804 Badgley, Fra July 28, 1800, to June 13, 1804 McGill, James August 6, 1804, to April 27, 1808 Chaboillez, Louis August 6, 1804, to April 27, 1808 Mondelet, Jean-Marie June 18, 1808, to October 2, 1809 Stuart, James June 18, 1808, to March 1, 1810 Papineau, Joseph November 23, 1809, to March 22, 1814 Sewell, Stephen April 21, 1810, to March 22, 1814 Beaujeu, Saveuse de May 13, 1814, to February 29, 1816 Platt, George May 13, 1814, to February 29, 1816 Roy Portelance, Louis April 25, 1816, to February 9, 1820 Molson, John April 25, 1816, to February 9, 1820 Heney, Hughes April 11, 1820, to September 2, 1830 Busby, Thomas April 11, 1820, to May 29, 1820 Thain, Thomas July 25, 1820, to July 6, 1824 Leslie, James August 28, 1824, to September 2, 1830

Montreal (West)--

McGill, James July 10, 1792, to May 31, 1796 Durocher, Jean-Baptiste July 10, 1792, to May 31, 1796 Auldjo, Alex July 20, 1796, to June 4, 1800 Foucher, Louis Charles July 20, 1796, to June 4, 1800 McGill, James July 28, 1800, to June 13, 1804 Périnault, Joseph July 28, 1800, to June 13, 1804 Richardson, John August 6, 1804, to April 27, 1808 Mondelet, Jean-Marie August 6, 1804, to April 27, 1808 McGillivray, William June 18, 1808, to October 2, 1809 Viger, Denis Benjamin June 18, 1808, to March 1, 1810 McCord, Thomas November 23, 1809, to March 1, 1810 St. Dizier, Et. N. April 21, 1810, to March 22, 1814 McLeod, Arch. N. April 21, 1810, to March 22, 1814 Papineau, Louis Joseph May 13, 1814, to September 2, 1830 Fraser, James May 13, 1814, to February 29, 1816 Vinet dit Soulignay, Félix April 25, 1816, to February 9, 1820 Garden, George April 11, 1820, to July 6, 1824 Rocheblave, Pierre de August 28, 1824, to July 5, 1827 Nelson, Robert August 25, 1827, to September 2, 1830

Montreal (County)--

Valois, Joseph October 26, 1830, to October 9, 1834 Perrault, Joseph October 26, 1830, to August 28, 1831 Mondelet, Dominique October 13, 1831, to November 24, 1832 Papineau, l’hon. Louis Joseph November 22, 1834, to November 3, 1835 Cherrier, Côme November 22, 1834, to March 27, 1838 Jobin, André November 25, 1835, to March 27, 1838

Montreal (East)--

Heney, Hughes October 26, 1830, to February 28, 1832 Leslie, James October 26, 1830, to March 27, 1838 Berthelet, Oliver April 6, 1832, to October 9, 1834 Roy, Joseph November 22, 1834, to March 27, 1838

Montreal (West)--

Papineau, l’hon. Louis Joseph October 26, 1830, to March 27, 1838 Fisher, John October 26, 1830, to March 26, 1832 Tracey, Daniel May 22, 1832, to July 18, 1832 Nelson, Robert November 22, 1834, to March 27, 1838

Montreal (City)--

Moffatt, l’hon. George April 8, 1841, to October 30, 1843 Holmes, Benjamin April 8, 1841, to September 23, 1844 Beaubien, Pierre November 22, 1843, to September 23, 1844 Moffatt, l’hon. George November 12, 1844, to December 6, 1847 Bleury, Charles-Clément Sabrevois de Nov. 12, 1844, to Dec. 6, 1847 Lafontaine, l’hon. Louis-Hippolyte Jan. 24, 1848, to Nov. 6, 1851 Holmes, Benjamin January 24, 1848, to November 6, 1851 Young, l’hon. John December 6, 1851, to June 23, 1854 Badgley, l’hon. William December 6, 1851, to June 23, 1854

Montreal (County)--

Delisle, Alexandre-Maurice April 8, 1841, to July 13, 1843 Jobin, André October 26, 1843, to November 6, 1851 Valois, Michel-François December 10, 1851, to June 23, 1854

Montreal (City)--

Dorion, Antoine-Aimé July 28, 1854, to June 10, 1861 Holton, Luther-Hamilton July 28, 1854, to November 28, 1857 Young, l’hon. John July 28, 1854, to November 28, 1857 Rose, John December 28, 1857, to June 10, 1861 McGee, Thomas D’Arcy December 28, 1857, to June 10, 1861

Montreal (Center)--

Rose, l’hon. John July 9, 1861, to July 1, 1866

Montreal (East)--

Cartier, l’hon. George-Etienne July 9, 1861, to July 1, 1867

Montreal (West)--

McGee, Thomas D’Arcy June 26, 1861, to July 1, 1867

Montreal (County)--

Hochelaga Laporte, Joseph July 24, 1854, to November 28, 1857 Jacques-Cartier Valois, Michel-François July 20, 1854, to November 28, 1857

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Sometimes called the “First Baldwin-Lafontaine Government.”

[2] See Dent, “The Last Forty Years of Canada,” Vol. II, pp. 180-1.

[3] The eight were J.A. Macdonald, George Brown, George Etienne Cartier, A.T. Gault, T. D’Arcy McGee, H.L. Langevin, W. McDougall and Alexander Campbell. Of these fathers of confederation, Montreal records with pride the names of Cartier and McGee, its sometime political representatives. The two especially did much to disarm the strong opposition in certain quarters in the province of Quebec.

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